I drew this picture last summer when co-coaching with Dan Moody for a client down in South Carolina. It was one of those cool moments where I magically drew something on the white board and everyone loved it.
Since then, I’ve used this image with other clients, captured it (in this form via Paper by FiftyThree) to use in conference presentations, and shown it to my Davisbase colleagues at our all-team meeting last week in Utah during an open space session on Info-graphics (thanks Bonnie!). Now, I’m sharing it here for you to use as well. Hope you enjoy!
The What vs. The How
User Stories are not a once-and-done sort of thing. They are a placeholder for conversation. They should be written on a card in order to keep them brief, and they are ABSOLUTELY negotiable.
The challenge is that team’s often jump straight to the solution (the how) before having a clear understanding of the what. There is progressive elaboration that must occur for each user story, and it’s nearly impossible for a team to derive the best solution unless the “what” for the story is clearly articulated up-front.
The lifecycle of a user story has 6 main stages. (Visual on the lifecycle of a user story to come in some future post. Perhaps co-authored with Jeffrey Davidson.)
| 1. Rough Cut | 2. Clear What | 3. Planned |
| Something on a card, with high-level acceptance criteria. Enough for the team to make a guess at its relative size. | Refined story content with more detailed acceptance criteria and a more confident sizing. Its also now prioritized. | The story has been targeted for a specific iteration within the release horizon (see Sizing to the Horizon). |
| 4. Ready | 5. Committed | 6. Accepted |
| The team has refined the content, talked enough about the “how” to feel it matches a Definition of Ready. | The team has committed to the story during a Sprint Planning session. | The team has demo’d the story to the Product Owner and it has been accepted. |
As you move through the stages, the “what” conversation becomes more of a “how” conversation. I also don’t expect a team to know 100% about the story before they commit to it. You learn more as you go. Its a good thing, and requires collaboration among ALL team members. I suggest you try it!
PS – You probably don’t even know 100% about the story at the end of the sprint. You don’t really know if it satisfies customers until it is in production! ;-)
PPS – It’s nearly impossible for me to write about, or talk about, user story refinement and the idea of “rough cut” versus “good what” without fondly remembering one of our fearless and inspirational leaders, Bill Gaiennie. He will forever be missed.
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