New version: https://www.slideshare.net/LukasKlose/incremental-delivery-benefits-of-vertical-splitting

1. This presentation by agile42 is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License.
Splitting User Stories

2. Why Split Stories
I know, to make them small…
But what is the benefit?

3. If you were to Build a Road from your Village “A” to
Village “B” Through a Forest...
...how would you break this task
into multiple (like 5) steps…
(Really, how would you do it...)
Village “B”
Village “A”

4. Not a good idea...
● Don’t know what is there until I
survey the landscape
● Might not have enough money to
complete the job
● Project might get cut
prematurely
● Might need to be able to
demonstrate/verify benefits of
getting to village B to get more
funding

5. It’s all About Risk and
Complexity
Management

6. days

7. days

8. User: explorer
● No infrastructure
● Barely enough precedence to
do it once more
● Validate assumptions
● Get to know people in village B
Step 1 - Blaze a Trail

9. ● Reduce Business Risk
○ Validate business assumptions
○ eg “Do I like the people in ‘village B’”
Benefits of Splitting

10. Step 2 - Harden the Path
User: foot passenger
● Can’t drive, but can
walk with ease
● Validate more
assumptions

11. Benefits of Splitting - Reduce Delivery Risk
○ walk before you run
○ predictability (eg 4 out of 5 done vs. 1 out
of 2)
○ interdependencies and – with it - risks
○ smaller changes -> less to go wrong

12. Step 3 - Construct a Road
User: off road vehicles
● Expand the usefulness of the path

13. Step 4 - Harden the Road
User: common vehicles
● No edge cases

14. Benefits of Splitting
● Reduce Technical Risk
○ defer commitment
○ validate tech assumptions (eg. can we build a highway on that route)

15. Step 5 - Build a Highway
User: everyone
● Make solution scalable

16. Benefits of Splitting
● Reduce Complexity Risk
○ simplify
○ emergent design/architecture

17. Each iteration...
● Goes the full way (full quality)
● Benefits from the iterations before it
● Provides some value, even if very
small

18. Learning vs Producing
Learn a lot
Produce a lot
Output
Learnings
Learn & Produce

19. Learning vs Producing
Business Value
Learnings or
foundation or
whatever...

20. When a Story is Split Well
● It is valuable
○ meets DoD, incl QA
○ Can produce feedback
● It is shippable/complete
○ no need to do further work to ship
○ could be feature toggled
● Integrated
○ Requires x-Functional Collaboration
○ No surprises later
○ Encourages team work

21. However
● It could be a fragment of a bigger feature
○ Shippable ≠ shipped
○ Eg. Jigsaw puzzle
○ Not useful without other pieces of the puzzle
● PO might pay a penalty for splitting to gain
incremental benefit
○ eg 1 big story = $100k, 5 small stories = $110k
○ decision is up to the PO

22. Techniques
● Split with the team because it’s a technical conversation, and all can learn
● Use acceptance criteria
● Use happy path (subset of use cases)
● Use subset of users
● Use assumptions
● Use constraints
● Use ...

23. If you really can’t figure out how to go smaller
vertically
.... build the road to the
cottage on the way (like
half way)
Travel the second half
of the way another day
Arrive at a destination
(however small the
increment) with every
story
Cottage Village “B”
Village “A”

24. SAMPLE STORY
As a customer on PLP I want only products available to me to show so I don’t
waste time looking at out of stock products
AC
MUST BE ABLE TO SEE THE PRODUCT SOMEWHERE ELSE
THE PRODUCTS OUT OF STOCK MUST BE ONLINE
IF PRODUCT IS IN STOCK IN A CLOSE STORE, THAT IS CONSIDERED AVAILABLE