Archive for category user stories

Kanban Kickoff

Posted by David Bland in agile, kanban, user stories on September 15, 2011

Release and Iteration kickoffs can be challenging. Luckily for us, some of the same techniques we use to manage the flow of work within a Release or Iteration can be used to help us with our kickoffs.

Kanban 101 reminds us to:
- Make Work Visible
- Limit Work In Progress
- Help Work to Flow

Kanban Story Sizing:

Create 3 columns before beginning your story sizing exercise. Label them Ready to Size, Sizing and Sized. Place all of the stories you wish to size in the Ready to Size column. Pull the stories through each column as you progress. Since I’m usually planning with one team, I only put a WIP limit on the Sizing column and keep it at 1.

I use Index Cards for this exercise, but you could project your Agile Lifecycle Management software up onto a wall or Skype it and accomplish the same thing… [Read More]

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Rewind Your Mind

Posted by David Bland in agile, user stories on September 1, 2011

rewind“A good engineer thinks in reverse and asks himself about the stylistic consequences of the components and systems he proposes” – Helmut Jan

This advice is not limited to engineers. It also applies to many of us who want to produce software that actually matters to people.

Thinking in reverse, yet leaning forward can yield innovative results. This can be especially helpful when you feel as though you’ve become stagnant in your day to day activities.

Applied to Lean Startup

As the Lean Startup movement continues to gain momentum, one has to be careful not to blindly speed through the Build -> Measure -> Learn loops.

As Eric Ries stated in his Mixergy interview, even though you act in… [Read More]

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Story Pointless

Posted by David Bland in humor, user stories on September 17, 2009

Have you ever attempted explaining Story Points to a new Agile team? It can be an incredibly frustrating experience. Perhaps that is a result of the Story Point being an arbitrary unit of measure, or perhaps I’m just bad at it. I remember in a CSM class once we walked through the Dog Points Exercise. [...]

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