This is the presentation I offered at the IBM 2010 conference around real world techniques and best practices for effective requirements gathering and release planning. Enjoy!
Real World Agile Release Planning and Story Breakdown Techniques
1. Real World Agile
Release Planning and
Story Breakdown
Techniques
Sally Elatta
President, AgileTransformation.com
Sally@AgileTransformation.com
RDM-1131A
The premiere software and product delivery event.
June 6–10 Orlando, Florida
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Speaker
Sally Elatta
President AgileTransformation.com
Taught over 1000+ and helped coach over 20+ teams
Background: Java/.Net Software Architect
Certified Scrum Practitioner & ScrumMaster
Certified IBM, Sun, Microsoft Professional
Sally@AgileTransformation.com
I am simply a transformer. Someone who is really
passionate about transforming individuals, teams and
organizations to doing what they do better. I value instilling
soft skills and leadership qualities in the people I coach. I
believe in Servant Leadership as the way to lead change
and create a culture of empowered teams, as opposed to
Command and Control.
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Agenda
Challenges With Requirements
Requirements Visioning and Brainstorming
Requirements Break Down
Requirements Deep Dive
Real World Release Planning Techniques
Best Practices and Tips
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4. Group Workshop
What are the top challenges we face
with Requirements on a project?
What are the most common issues
that cause project challenges?
Discuss this with others next to you and prepare
some answers to share with all of us.
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14. Story Writing Workshops
Involve as many team members as possible.
Goal is to brainstorm and write as many user
stories as possible under the themes identified.
Leave the prioritization and evaluation for later.
Prepare the room with post-it notes, flip charts
and markers.
Need an effective facilitator to run these
meetings to keep folks on track.
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15. Attributes of a User Story
A small piece of a requirement that is „valuable‟ to the product
owner. U-INVEST Attributes:
Understandable
Story Format: Independent
“As a <role>, I want to <goal>” Negotiable
“Ability to <goal>”
Valuable
Estimatable
Small
Testable
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16. Sample Stories
As an Agent I
As an Agent I
want to view the
want to add new
‘Current Leads’
lead information.
report.
As a BA I want
to define the
existing product
return process.
As the XYZ system
As the EDW I want to receive
System, I want to new member
have ABC file enrollments each
loaded on a night.
schedule.
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18. Breaking Down the EPICS
Epics are large stories that need to broken down so they can be
development-ready. They could be either Compound or Complex.
Compound means they have other independent stories within
them.
Complex means that it is really one big independent story, but to
get it done, we need to break it down to reduce it‟s complexity.
You break down epics during:
Initial story brainstorming.
During story sizing.
During sprint execution when realizing scope is larger than anticipated.
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30. Sample Acceptance Test Cases
“A customer can pay for shopping
cart items using a credit card”
Test with VISA, MasterCard and American Express (pass)
Test with Diner‟s Club (fail)
Test with bad and missing 3 digit codes (fail)
Test with expired cards (fail)
Test with a purchase amount over the card limit (fail)
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32. Business Rules
In some cases, the test itself contains the business rule itself.
In other cases you will need to provide the list of business
rules that apply to that test case.
1.1-TC1 „Verify that student eligibility rules are applied
correctly during registration‟
TC1-BR1: Students with a „hold‟ record cannot register on the site.
TC1-BR2: Students with outstanding payment from last semester
cannot register.
TC1-BR3: Student already registered cannot register again.
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Summary
Addressing the challenges with requirements starts by
designing a simple yet effective process.
We need to differentiate between the levels of requirements.
Using simple modeling and effective facilitation techniques
can dramatically improve requirements gathering.
Release planning is a multi-step activity.
For more Agile related training and coaching, please visit us:
www.AgileTransformation.com
www.AgileTraining.com
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