55
votes
Accepted
How to deal with stories that share functionality
User Stories are not system specifications or functional requirements. Rather, they are the beginning of a conversation that can lead to such specifications or requirements.
Accordingly, I would ...
- 200k
33
votes
My use case diagram is a mess. What can I do?
The biggest problem that I see is the wrong level of abstraction.
First, I'd remove the things that aren't use cases. A use case describes a goal that an actor has. "Log In", "Two-...
- 83.7k
20
votes
My use case diagram is a mess. What can I do?
Two approaches might help you:
Don't try to cram several use cases into one diagram - instead, create individual diagrams where each shows only one (main) use case. This will make it a lot clearer ...
- 212k
15
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How to deal with stories that share functionality
Don't: Try and split the stories, Do one story and then the other.
Do: Ensure the dev team is aware of the second story.
The problem with trying to plan out the detailed tasks and thing up a generic ...
- 78.6k
14
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Does this count as a user story for a basic Sudoku game?
Your examples can count as user stories, but they are missing a very important part: the goal that the user wants to achieve when the story is implemented.
This goal might be obvious to you, but you ...
- 75.7k
12
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In agile, how are basic infrastructure tasks at the start of a project planned and allocated using strict management frameworks like TFS online?
I like the other answers that say to put as much "tooling" code as you can into Iteration 0. However, sometimes, these kinds of tools come up after the project has already started. Perhaps in ...
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11
votes
Accepted
Shared Development Tasks for Agile User Stories
I shouldn't write a "Generate UI and DB" Task for each User Story. That's too much redundancy. But I don't know how to write a "Generate UI and DB" task that must be completed before any of the User ...
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11
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Cloning Jira tickets at the end of a sprint - carrying over effort and points
If at the end of your sprints often you have many big tickets that are 90% - 95% done then there is something wrong:
Red flag #1: Lots of things get packed into a sprint but are not finished
Red flag ...
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9
votes
Accepted
How can agile be applied to applications involving complex processing?
This turned out to be longer than I had planned (it had started as a comment), but I hope the added length/details are helpful and you find them justified.
Agile is not specific to CRUD apps
Most ...
- 526
8
votes
How should I translate a requirements document into user stories?
But my team is working using agile methods (a combination of scrum and kanban), so what we need is user stories.
This is a misconception. Neither Scrum nor Kanban require that requirements be ...
- 83.7k
8
votes
Accepted
How to handle a user story that is significantly larger than estimated
My recommendation would be to remove it from the current sprint, and then continue the sprint as usual. Don't "backfill" the sprint (though, I'm not 100% certain by what you mean by that). If you ...
- 25.3k
8
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Is there a recommended format for writing a technical debt story?
The roadblock you're running into is there by design, and you're running into it for the correct reasons.
User stories are things the user cares about. That's why it's written from the point of view ...
- 54.9k
8
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How to give/get the necessary implementation details in agile user stories?
I want a glass of milk.
What kind of milk?
Don't care. Just milk.
Warm or cold?
Whatever give me milk.
2% or ...
Milk!
OK fine here's your milk.
Eew, give me some milk that isn't past it's ...
- 112k
7
votes
Accepted
User stories - Different formats for different purposes?
The classical user-story describes a desired feature from the point of view of a user. It is very synthetic in view of the 3 C: stories are written on a Card, they are the promise for a Conversation ...
- 79.9k
6
votes
In agile, how are basic infrastructure tasks at the start of a project planned and allocated using strict management frameworks like TFS online?
If it's infrastructure it's typically put into Iteration Zero. What's Iteration Zero? It's typically the time between kickoff and planning before actual iterations start.
An example, say we need a ...
- 11.7k
6
votes
Accepted
Should I express system actions as user stories?
You may be confusing the roles of users and systems. Systems can certainly mark orders as not delivered on behalf of a user. That wouldn't be part of a user story for a system, however; it would be ...
- 200k
6
votes
Accepted
How to avoid or amalgamate tiny late-project user stories?
A small user story should not be a problem. If your process adds a lot of overhead to managing user stories, you need to look into your process or tools to streamline it. In a modern issue tracking ...
- 60k
6
votes
Best way to handle "So, when will this be done by?"
Best way to handle “So, when will this be done by?”
"At the end of the sprint".
I realize that's a snarky answer, but there's some truth hidden in there. It depends on who is doing the asking and ...
- 25.3k
6
votes
User stories - how to include technology?
It's important to make a distinction here between a use case and a user story. A user story is a user-legible document describing the needs of a user in a program. It should be something that any ...
- 22.8k
6
votes
Can story points be used to describe size of several projects estimated by several teams?
Assuming a common reference of story point size that seems reasonable. However generally story points are a per team concept and can't be used across teams like that.
- 2,693
6
votes
Accepted
User Stories and Epics
Before I say anything else, I want to say this - don't waste too much time trying to adhere to a best practice or a prescribed format. Instead, just do whatever lets you capture the requirements and ...
- 9,079
6
votes
Accepted
Is it common for seemingly small feature additions to involve changing many functions?
Yes, this is normal.
The conventional wisdom these days is that it is overall more efficient to build what you need first, without first considering all consequences on all possible later features or ...
- 110k
6
votes
How to give/get the necessary implementation details in agile user stories?
Users and other stakeholders should not have to be concerned about how you implement your system. All they should care about is what it does, not how it does it.
You're quite correct that many ...
- 200k
5
votes
Accepted
Is this a good user story?
Is this a good user story? : No
This is a good technical description for the development team but not a
User_story that should use "... sentences in the everyday or business language of the end ...
- 7,516
5
votes
How do you include "global requirements"?
In my opition global requirements belong to the definition-of-done because you do not want to update every matching userstory when a global requirement changes
- 7,516
5
votes
Which should be done first: use cases or user stories?
Use cases and user stories are both tools for gathering and expressing requirements.
As you already found, a single use case has typically a broader scope than a single user story because it tries to ...
- 75.7k
5
votes
At what PBI level should I be creating branches?
It looks as though you're conflating several things that should stay apart.
First off: your branching strategy and your work-item breakdown structure do not need to match. The branching strategy ...
5
votes
How to handle project manager getting upset when tasks spend multiple days in development?
Four points....
Per Schwaber and Beedle, a Scrum task should take roughly 4 to 16 hours. Some complicated tasks can take longer if the team can't find a better way to break it down. So while your ...
- 26.8k
5
votes
Is it feasible to use User Stories and Use Cases in the same team?
What's a use case ?
Let's look at the definition of Ivar Jacobson, the guy who invented the concept before UML even existed:
A use case is all the ways of using a system to achieve a particular
goal ...
- 79.9k
5
votes
How to deal with redundant requirements when using Scrum
It sounds like this should be covered by grooming.
Constant change means that stories often need to be corrected, expanded, split, condensed, joined, re-estimated etc.
It is a good idea to groom all ...
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