Telling (User) Stories

© Agilify Ltd. 2016
Telling (User) Stories
Paul Goddard CST, CEC
Agile Coach & Certified Scrum Trainer

Who is this guy anyway?
• BT (8 years)
• Nokia (1 year)
• Agilify (2008)
• Certified Scrum
Trainer(2006)
• Certified Enterprise
Coach (2011)
PaulKGoddard
(August 2015)

"A story represents a feature customers want in their
software, a story they would like to be able to tell their
friends about this great system they are using."
- Planning Extreme Programming (Beck, Fowler 2001)

https://dannorth.net/whats-in-a-story/

"Stories are data made human"
- Neil Mullarkey

The Power of Storytelling
Olfactory
Cortex
Activates
Increased
Empathy
Oxytocin
Hormone
We Ignore
Clichés
Primal
Understandin
g
Cortisol
Hormone
Source: echostories.com

In this workshop
• Simple structures for telling compelling
stories
• Tools and techniques to aid story creation
• Skills to increase empathy within an agile
team
• Enthusiasm for telling stories rather than
writing them

Story Spines

Story Spines (10 mins)
• In pairs, use one of the templates provided
to create a story based a popular book or
movie
• Then read it back to the rest of your group
• Try and guess the book or movie from the
story spine described!

The Story Mountain

Rory’s Story Cubes

The Story Mountain (15 mins)
• As a table, throw the story dice into the
centre of the table
• Break into pairs and use the story
mountain template to create a fictional
story
• Share the stories with the rest of the group
to finish

Personas
“fictional characters created to represent the
different user types that might use a site,
brand, or product in a similar way.”
• Based on user interviews
• Desribe the patterns, goals, skills and
environment
• Can develop empathy within development
teams

Persona Example
Name: Ted
Age: 43
Location: Milton Keynes
Occupation: Stock Broker
Likes: Sushi
“Top Gear”
His Job
Typical
Scenario:
Ted is on a delayed train home from
a day in the London office. He
opens his laptop onto the tray in
front of him, and opens his email.
He sees 67 unread emails but he
can’t identify which ones need
addressing before tomorrrow’s client
meeting,
Dislikes: Camping
Wasting Time
Reality TV

Types of Persona
• Focal – Primary users of the product who are its main
focus. We will optimize design for them. At least one
persona must be a focal persona.
• Secondary – Also use the product. We will satisfy them
when we can.
• Unimportant – Low-priority users, including infrequent,
unauthorized or unskilled users, as well as those who
misuse the product.
• Affected – They don’t use the product themselves, but
are affected by it
• Exclusionary – Someone we’re not designing for. It’s
often useful to specify this to prevent nonusers from
creeping back into product development discussions

Personas Part 1 (10 mins)
• In pairs, use the Lego people to help you
create a focal persona for a fictional
software product
• Use the paper template as a guide
• Draw a picture of that person in the top left
corner

A story in your own words

Polo (15 mins)
• As individuals, tell Polo’s story in your own
words
• The rest of the table listen as the audience
• Use the storyboards to help
• Add as much depth as you can
• Ask for feedback on your storytelling skills
• Rotate the storyteller round the table

Why bother?

Chief Storyteller

Swedish Story Telling (10 mins)
1. Pair up with someone
2. One of you is the storyteller, and the other is the word giver
3. The other table members will listen as the audience
4. Have the word giver give the storyteller a made up title of a story to tell, which includes your
persona as the main character
5. The storyteller begins telling the story. During the story, the word giver will call out random
words that have nothing to do with what the storyteller is talking about. For instance, if the story
is about a trip to the beach, the word giver avoids helpful worlds like “sand”, “waves”,
“surfboards”, etc..Instead you give completely disassociated words like “pudding”, “dinosaur”,
and “Sean Connery”
6. The storyteller has to instantly incorporate the random words into the story. The word giver must
wait until the word just given is incorporated into the story before calling out a new one. After a
while, the storyteller finds an ending to his/her story and then the players switch roles.
7. Rotate with a different story from a different pair on the table

Thank You!

Telling (User) Stories

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