These are the slides for my talk at AgileDC. The abstract for the talk was: Do you want to write great User Stories that provide the vehicle for conversation and confirmation that we build the right thing? Do you struggle with splitting stories so that they still provide business value but can be accomplished within a fraction of your iteration and be potentially shippable to production? We will do a quick refresher on User Story formatting to include Acceptance Criteria. Then we will dive into learning techniques for splitting stories in this interactive workshop.

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Let’s Sharpen Your
Agile Ax: It’s Story
Splitting Time
Brian Sjoberg (@onek2go)
10/24/2016

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• Agile/Lean Coach at Excella
• Team and Organizational levels
• DC Scrum User Group
Introduction
Credit; Jackson Sjoberg

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• User Story
• Acceptance Criteria (AC)
• Splitting Techniques
Outline

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User Story
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• Placeholder to facilitate communication
• Represents a customer’s request to the
team that creates a product
• Helps prevent misunderstanding
• Best option so far
User Story

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Create Shared Understanding
I’m glad we all agree. Credit: User Story Mapping

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Create Shared Understanding
Oh! Credit: User Story Mapping

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Create Shared Understanding
Ah Ha! Credit: User Story Mapping

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Create Shared Understanding
I’m glad we all agree. Credit: User Story Mapping

10. Starving Student on a Low Budget
to find and purchase food
quickly from my mobile device
I can fill my stomach without
spending a lot of money
As a WHO
WHAT
WHY
What is most important? The Who, the What, or the Why?
I want
So that
Need to understand Why the
Who wants the What.
Important to know Whom this
work is going to benefit.

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1. Customer is the person/group requesting
value from team building the product
2. Ideally, Product Owner would write the
user story for the team but in reality that
rarely happens
Notes about the customer

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1. Customer is the person/group requesting
value from team building the product
2. Ideally, Product Owner would write the
user story for the team but in reality that
rarely happens
3. Usually, an expert assists the customer
and Product Owner in understanding
what they really want/need
Notes about the customer

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• Who is the “Who” in a user story?
• Is the “Who” ever the team doing the
work, e.g., “As a developer, I want to go do
something, so that I can do something
else.”?
• Who typically writes the user story?
Review

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Acceptance
Criteria
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Correct
• There is a button in
the upper left
corner of the
screen
Present Tense Indicative Statements
Incorrect
• Put the button in the
upper left corner
• There will be a button
in the upper left
corner
• We need a button in
the upper left corner

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Today Future

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WYSIWYG

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Etc…
TBD

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Correct
• The drop down
contains each of the
days of the week
• The screen loads in
1.5 seconds or less
95% of the time with
strong 4G signal
Unambiguous
Incorrect
• The drop down
contains Monday,
Tuesday, etc…
• Load time is
sufficiently fast

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• Present Tense Indicative Statements, i.e., they are either
TRUE or FALSE
• Generally FALSE before the product has been built
• Must be TRUE for the user story to be accepted
• Include Functional and Non-Functional Requirements
• Complete (All I See Is All There Is)
• Un-ambiguous (no etc., TBDs)
• Include Examples when helpful
Acceptance Criteria

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Splitting
Techniques

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29. AC Splitting
AC
• I can search by genres​
• I can search by artist​
• I can search by song title
As a <new user persona>
I want to search by genres
So that <new more specific
benefit>
As a <new user persona>
I want to search by artist
So that <new more specific
benefit>
As a <new user persona>
I want to search by song title
So that <new more specific
benefit>

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• Form groups of 2 or 3
• Discuss ways to split the story on the
worksheet
Group Exercise

31. Conjunction Splitting
And
Or
If
,

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• Form groups of 2 or 3
• Discuss ways to split one or more of the
stories on the worksheet
Group Exercise

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• Look for words that could be replaced with
more specific terms
– Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs can all be
generic
– For example
• Vehicle -> Car -> Honda Civic
• Animal -> Dog -> Pug
Generic Words Splitting
Credit: SmallerStories.com

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• Form groups of 2 or 3
• Discuss ways to split one or more of the
stories on the worksheet
Group Exercise

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• Pretend User Story is done
• “What happens when the functionality is
used?”
• If there is a sequence, then it may be
possible to break into smaller stories
Timeline Analysis Splitting
Credit: SmallerStories.com

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• Form groups of 2 or 3
• Discuss ways to split one or more of the
stories on the worksheet
Group Exercise

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Lettuce Wrap Up

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• User Story
• Acceptance Criteria
• Splitting Techniques
Lettuce Wrap Up

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• Comments/Feedback
– Brian.Sjoberg@Excella.com
– @onek2go
– 301-404-0765
Thank You

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Back Up

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• Card – Small and could fit on a 3” x 5”
card
• Conversation – It is placeholder for a
conversation to occur in the future. Pointer
to other documents
• Confirmation – Objectives identified
through conversation are placed here.
Three C’s of User Stories
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Definition of Ready

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• When the Definition of Ready (DoR) is met, the user
story could be developed.
• The Definition of Ready applies to all of a team’s user
stories and is more generic, e.g.:
– Immediately actionable
– Negotiable
– Valuable
– Estimated
– Sized-appropriatey
– Testable
When Can We Start?

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Product Backlog Refinement
Definition of Ready
I N V E S T
Why is this
needed?

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Definition of Done

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• When the Definition of Done (DoD) and
Acceptance Criteria (AC) are both met, the
user story is DONE.
• The DoD applies to all of a team’s user
stories and is more generic
• AC pertain to a specific story
When Are We Finished?

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DoD Example
All Code
Checked-in
Unit Tests
Passing
Acceptance
Criteria
Passing
Integration
Test Passing
Performance
Test Passing
With a Product Back Item (PBI)
With a Sprint
With a Release
Security
Audit
Passing
Regression
Test Passing