This document outlines an exercise for practicing slicing use cases into small user stories called "elephant carpaccio". Participants were given 40 minutes to build a retail calculator by splitting the use case into 15-20 stories over 5 iterations of 8 minutes each. The goal was to make each story vertically testable and provide user value. Hints were provided to help ensure stories were implementable quickly and different from the previous story. After building, participants reviewed how far they got in delivering value and the number of stories created, and then provided reflections on the exercise.

1. the <elephant> carpaccio workshop
Nikos Batsios, Agile Coach/ScM
6th Agile Meetup @ Thess
agilegreece.org

2. purpose
• learn and practice in slicing use cases in small
user stories

3. why split

4. why split
• stories: vertical, testable, user-
valuable. Cuts across multiple
architectural layers

5. why split
• story slicing: making thinner stories but still vertical

6. group discussion
do you see any benefits?

7. time vs value

8. our challenge

9. build a retail calculator
• build a retail calculator in 40 minutes, divided in 5
iterations of 8 minutes each
• split our use case in 15 to 20 user stories (most
people will build this in 2-3 slices, not our case!)
• a story is only valid if it has a UI, input & output,
and is visible different from the last story
• every story should be elephant-shaped, together
the form the whole elephant

10. https://docs.google.com/document/d/
1Ls6pTmhY_LV8LwFiboUXoFXenXZl0qVZWPZ8J4uoqpI/edit
refer to handout

11. priorities
target is: 5 discounts, 5 states
5 states before doing anything
with discounts (why? we can deploy!)
validation and fancy gui at the end!

12. hints
• stories:
• implementable in 2-6 minutes
• different from previous story
• more value to customer than the previous story
• no story is just a mockup, UI, test case e.t.chard co
• your first slice? anything bigger than hello world is too big!
• discuss value of quickly building your walking skeleton (key architectural
components)
• next slices? no state, no discounts, hard coded taxes, two letter states, how
many states, discounts, tests e.t.c

13. review
• how far did you get on the value curve?
• how many stories?
• Acceptance tests:
• i am in california, and i am buying 65535 items,
and each one cost 123.45$. the total amount i
have to pay?

14. review
• how far did you get on the value curve?
• how many stories?
• Acceptance tests:
• i am in california, and i am buying 65535 items,
and each one cost 123.45$. the total amount i
have to pay?

15. your reflections here!

16. credits
• Alistair Cockburn, Henrik Kniberg
• http://alistair.cockburn.us/Elephant+Carpaccio
+exercise
• https://docs.google.com/document/d/
1TCuuu-8Mm14oxsOnlk8DqfZAA1cvtYu9WGv67Yj_
sSk/pub