Agile stories, estimating and planning

Agile Stories, Estimating and Planning

About Dimitri Ponomareff ● Agile Coach & Trainer ○ Wolters Kluwer (Data-warehouse) ○ Apriva (Mobile) ○ Choice Hotels International (Web) ○ First Things First / AZ ECDH (Data-warehouse) ○ JDA Software Group (Software) ○ Insight Enterprises (Web) ● Facilitator of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” ● Project Manager ○ Project Management Professional (PMP) ○ Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) and Certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP) ● IT Professional ○ Vice President of Communications - PMI Phoenix Chapter ○ Director of Web Technologies - I-ology ○ E-Commerce Manager - Insight Canada

Agile background for stories, estimating andplanning ● The Agile Manifesto ● Communication ● PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Act ● Why, What & How

The Agile Manifesto We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. Source: www.agilemanifesto.org

Project Management is all about communication People who want IT must communicate with people who can build IT.

Effective communicationAgile Software Development: Communicating, Cooperating TeamsBy Alistair Cockburn - Aug 10, 2009

PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Act

Why, What & How● WHY are we doing this? Voice of the stakeholder (Stakeholders)● WHAT needs to be done? Voice of the user (Product Owner, Subject Matter Expert)● HOW do we build it? Voice of the developer (Scrum Team)

Agile Stories ● Work breakdown structure (WBS) ● What is a story? ○ Story form ○ Cards - Conversation - Confirmation ● Story writing workshops ○ Epics and story breakdown ○ INVEST guideline ● Stories vs. Use Cases vs. Requirements ● Product Backlog of stories

Alternative to Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

What is a User Story? ● User Stories provide a light-weight approach to managing requirements for a system. ● A short statement of function captured on an index card and/or in a tool. ● The details are figured out in future conversations between the team and the product owner or customers. ● This approach facilitates just in time requirements gathering, analysis and design by the following activities: ○ Slicing user stories down in release planning ○ Tasking user stories out in sprint planning ○ Specifying acceptance test criteria for user stories early in development

Story form As a < role > I can < activity > so that < business value > ● Role - represents who is performing the action. It should be a single person, not a department. It may be a system if that is what is initiating the activity. ● Activity – represents the action to be performed by the system. ● Business Value – represents the value to the business. Why is this story important?

Acceptance criteria ● like stories its written in simple language ● define the conditions of success/satisfaction ● provide clear story boundaries ● remove ambiguity by forcing the team to think through how a feature or piece of functionality will work from the user’s perspective ● checklist or template of things to consider for each story ○ list of impacted modules and/or documents ○ specific user tasks, business process or functions ● establish the basis for acceptance testing ○ steps to test the story (given-when-then scenarios) ○ type of testing (manual vs. automated)

The 3 Cs 1. Card Written on a card 2. Conversation Details captured in conversations 3. Confirmation Acceptance criteria confirm that the story is Done. Source: XP Magazine 8/30/01, Ron Jeffries

Story writing workshops● define clear roles: facilitator and story writer (capture)● include the entire team and anyone who can express the WHAT aligned to the WHY (subject matter experts, users, customers, etc...) ○ all participants must stay away from the HOW ○ promote open discussion and use open ended questions● consider using story-boarding technique ○ work around themes/features ○ begin with the end in mind● write as many stories as possible, plan for 2-4 hours ○ no need for prioritization ○ high level acceptance criteria

Product, Epics & Stories

Start with Epics and break down into Stories

INVEST guideline from Bill WakeI - IndependentThe user story should be self contained, in a way that there is no inherent dependency on another user story.N - NegotiableUser stories, up until they are part of a Sprint, can always be changed and rewritten.V - ValuableA user story must deliver value to the end user.E - EstimableYou must always be able to estimate the size of a user story.S - Sized appropriatelyUser stories should not be so big as to become impossible to plan/task/prioritize with a certain level of certainty.T - TestableThe user story or its related description must provide the necessary information to make test developmentpossible.

Stories vs. Use Cases vs. Requirements Stories Use Cases Requirements Goal generate conversation capture a behavior establish a contract a process Scope a single activity "day in the life" everything Format a single sentence numbered bullets specifications open for negotiation locked, changes may locked, require scopeCompleteness and refinements impact entire process change and approvals simple, Language comprehensible structured, flows precise, technical

Product Backlog of stories● a list of all desired work on the project “The requirements”● owned, managed and prioritized by the Product Owner● items estimated by the team● re-prioritized at the start of each iteration● ideally expressed such that each item has value to the users or customers of the product

Estimating ● The cone of uncertainty ● What is estimation? ● Estimation tools/techniques ● Story estimation ○ Story points ○ Task board ○ SMART tasks ○ Burn-down chart

The Cone of Uncertainty

What is estimation?● Estimation calculated approximation of a result which is usable even if input data may be incomplete or uncertain● Estimate to judge tentatively or approximately the value, worth, or significance of● Point estimation estimation in which a single value is assigned to a parameter

Estimation tools: T-shirts, Points & Hours S M L XL XS

Story Estimation

Story Points● Measure “bigness” ○ COMPLEXITY – How difficult it seems? ○ EFFORT - How much of it there is? ○ RISK - Current knowledge (uncertainty)● Relative values ○ Unit-less (dog points) ○ Use analogy – triangulate with other stories● Estimation values ○ 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100 ○ Planning poker

An task board

SMART TasksThis is the same SMART approach used with setting effective goalsbut for tasks.S – SpecificThe task is specific enough that everyone can understand whats involved and prevents overlapping.M – MeasurableThe team can measure that the task is Done. This requires the team to have a clear definition of Done.A – AchievableThe task is achievable by whoever from the team takes on this work.R – RelevantEvery task should be relevant by contributing directly to a story and each task can be explained/justified.T – Time-boxedA task should be time-boxed by setting the right expectation for how long it should take to complete the task.

Sprint Burn-down

A sprint backlog Tasks Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Code the user interface 8 4 8 0 0 Code the middle tier 16 12 10 4 0 Test the middle tier 8 16 16 11 8 Write the online help 12 Write the foo class 8 8 8 8 8 Add error logging 8 4 0 ● Individuals sign up for work of their own choosing - work is never assigned ● Estimated work remaining is updated daily ● Any team member can add, delete or change the sprint backlog ● Work for the sprint emerges ● If work is unclear, define a sprint backlog item with a larger amount of time and break it down later

Planning ● Planing process ● Levels of planning ○ Release planning ○ Iteration planning ○ Daily planning

Planning process

Levels of planning

Release planning ● Overall context and prioritization for a specific period of time ● Product Owner ○ Creates a goal for the release ○ Selects a number of user stories from the product backlog ○ Works with the team to decompose and estimate the user stories ● The outcome of the release planning process is ○ Release Data Sheet ○ Release Backlog ○ Release Burndown Chart

Iteration planning Tasks Hours Code the middle tier 8 Code the user interface 4 Write test fixtures 4 Code the foo class 6 Update performance tests 4 ● Team selects stories from the product backlog they can commit to completing ● Sprint backlog is created ○ Tasks are identified and each is estimated in hours ○ Tasks and estimates are done collaboratively ● High-level design is considered

Daily planningParameters ● Daily ● 15-minutes ● Stand-up ● Not for problem solvingThree questions for each scrum team member 1. What did you do yesterday? 2. What will you do today? 3. Is anything in your way?These are not status for the Agile Project Manager, they are commitments infront of your peers

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Thank You

Resources and References● www.scrumalliance.org● www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/scrum● www.controlchaos.com● Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager’s Guide by Craig Larman● Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn● Agile Project Management with Scrum by Ken Schwaber● Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen● Agile Software Development Ecosystems by Jim Highsmith● Agile Software Development with Scrum by Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle● Scrum and The Enterprise by Ken Schwaber● User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development by Mike Cohn

This presentation was inspired by the work of many people and we have done our very best toattribute all authors of texts and images, and recognize any copyrights. If you think thatanything in this presentation should be changed, added or removed, please contact us. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

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Agile stories, estimating and planning

by Dimitri Ponomareff

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