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My company has tried to adopt the scrum methodology with mixed success. Theses are some areas where we've had issues. How do you handle these?
Tracking requirements from
Product Marketing through to product. We're trying out JIRA to track all requirements individually and assigning a release to each one as it is picked for implementation.
Who creates stories? Product
Management who doesn't know enough
to create effectively small stories,
developers who may not have domain
knowledge, an analyst in between?
Functional specs
do you write them or just try to get them into a story
definition?
Do you write functional
specs per story? Per feature?
How do you see the relationship between functional specs and stories?
answering the question from people
with VP in their title "what are we
going to get by [8 months from
now]?"
Let's see if my take adds anything (not certain by any means...)
I'm not sure about the "assigning a release to each one" thing. I thought the idea was to put a "price" on each story/function point/unit of development and pick what goes into the current sprint. Everything else is backlog - you can offer some indication of remaining effort (see evidence based scheduling in FogBugz) but I don't think you should be allocating to specific sprints - you don't know what'll be in the backlog by the time you get there, for one thing. All you know is that it's going to change, so why waste time on it?
There should be a designated user representative. Or more than one, if domain knowledge can't be concentrated in one individual. But someone from the business domain should be in charge overall of deciding what goes into a sprint, subject to the effort available, of course. There can be a place for a Business Analyst type, but they need to be domain experts. If your user(s) can't write stories, even with your help (it's a co-operative thing, or should be) then you all need help. Consider getting a coach involved for a sprint or two.
You won't be writing functional specs in an Agile environment. You'll be writing code. Your user will be on hand at all times (or you're already exposed to significant risk) and they're your spec. The story tells you "what", and is going to be a small enough unit of work that you should be able to decide on "how" fairly quickly. And refactor. Always refactor. It's not an overhead, it's part of the process and your design won't evolve satisfactorily without it.
If you have VPs (hey, I'm a VP, we're not all bad!) who ask that sort of question, then parts of your company are not getting it yet. Choose someone (the person best able to deal with non-techies, perhaps, or maybe the person least able, since they clearly need the practice) to explain it to them. If what's built is important to them, perhaps their questions are an indication that someone's not as involved as they should be.
You should translate your requirements into a Product Backlog. This backlog is what you use to decide what Sprint Backlog items are chosen for each Sprint iteration. Management decides what is on the Product Backlog, but the team needs to agree to what they can produce in the Sprint (this is a negotiation that occurs at every sprint).
Your Product Owner (usually a product manager) drives the creation of the stories. The Stories are simple (as a system admin, I need to be able to add a user). If your product management does not understand your product, you are in trouble.
Agile is about designing as required. The design is never in the story. The spec can be per story, or per feature. You could design all your CRUD inside of one spec, which covers multiple stories.
The Product Owner gets a product demo at the end of every Sprint. So value is demonstrated at every cycle. So your VP would get reports on a monthly basis (ususally 3 weeks of dev + 1 week to prepare for the Sprint demo).
If you are going to do anything in regards writing or designing code, one of the things you should always do, is write a spec, irrespective of whatever methodology you are using, wether it is Scrum, XP, Agile or SDLC. Many people who say that writing specs is so unagile and a monument to wasteful bureaucratic paperwork. The simple fact is that they are misguided when they say that code is the spec.
The clear fact is that a spec allows you to formulate your ideas and designs beforehand, and its much easier to change a spec than it is to change a program, especially if you are working outside the confines of simple LOB application. Specs ensure you have a clearer understanding of what is required when you start coding.
Its been show time and time again that teams that use specs, design better software.
In my opinion, if you hear anybody say the code is the spec, that is dogma, plain and simple, and is storing up huge maintainability problems for the future.
As an aside, I don't have anything against the Agile Manifesto or light management process centric methods like Scrum. I've used it in the past few years a number of times,
and it delivers. I've also seen good software down the drain, where an agile focus would have saved it. But it is no panacea or silver bullet.
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I am working on an open-source project which shows how to develop software iteratively using test-driven development and some ideas from domain-driven design. I know what I would do, however my formal skills (especially regarding UML) are a little bit rusty.
Below I am going to post my first steps with the diagrams and the explanations I would give to my readers.
I have the following questions:
The last step ends with the question But what will stich together these components?. How to show the reader the way in UML terms, while not skipping anything in the train of thought? What I plan to do is to let each component provide an Environment class. For the purpose of testing, a TestingEnvironment will gather all those environments and inject the right callbacks into the World. But which types of UML diagrams to use for showing my train of thought, and in which order? My problem is, somehow, that I know what I want to do, but I can't rationalize it to myself why I want to do it that way - I guess it has gotten a part of me to the point I don't make such decisions consciously any more.
What mistakes have I done so far, how to fix them, and most importantly: WHY?
Step 1
(0001_user_commands_use_cases.pdf)
(0002_user_commands_use_cases.pdf)
User Use Cases - Analysis
We are starting with an use case diagram (0001_user_commands_use_cases.pdf) as
part of the preliminary analysis stage. This diagram should only help us
understand what our client wants. These use cases may change over time, but
never the less, they help us understand the system we are going to develop.
Please follow the arrows while reading the following explanations.
The role the user plays when interacting first with our system will be Guest.
The Guest sends to the system some registration data, which we process.
In the diagram, we are describing what happens from a logistic point of view,
from the perspective of the client for which we write the application. We are
not referring yet to classes or objects, or the concrete workflow, which may
end up being quite different.
We are also not dealing with errors, because that would only add more
background noise to the idea - and because error handling does not add business
value to the system. Of course, a system has to be robust to errors, but keep
in mind that we're now just making the analysis - not the design of the system.
Logistically speaking, after the Guest has sent us the registration data, there
is a Registered User. A registered user can send us the login data, so that he
becomes an Authenticated User.
Following the diagram, we can see how only an Authenticated User can send to us
a request to log out of the system, thus becoming a Deauthenticated User.
Why a Deauthenticated User, and not a Guest back again? Basically, it comes
down to us not being able to foresee the future. We really have no idea how the
client will want us to extend the system - nor does he himself! Beside that,
the two roles, a Guest which we know nothing about, and a user which has just
deauthenticated, which we do know something about, are really different things.
Of course it may be that the Deauthenticated User will exist in our application
only for a very short period of time, or it may be that it's created for the
sole purpose of being destroyed back again, without being looked at by any
other subsystem of our ERP - but still I cannot stress it enough: logistically,
the role of a Deauthenticated User stands on its own.
The second diagram (0002_user_commands_use_cases.pdf) contains all the
information of the first diagram, with some added items. If you follow the
green arrows, you will see that the process is the same.
In the first diagram we notice how all three things done by the ERP system are
some kind of generalizations of a process. We have introduced this new generic
process in the second diagram as "Process Data".
Another element we have added in the second diagram is a generalization of the
three "Sending Data" elements. We are not sure how this will materialize in the
next stage (designing the system), but it looks like there's a generalization
there which may, in the end, make the system easier to maintain and extend.
We always seek new generalizations and abstractions because they have this nice
property of making the code maintainable and extendable.
Conclusion
----------
In our design, the ERP will do one central thing, "Process Data", data which
will come in in a standardized way, represented in our second diagram by the
"Send Data" use case.
We don't know how we will design these things yet, until now we have only
thought about the logistics, since we are doing just the analysis.
In the next commit, we are going to look closer at the application domain, in
order to better see the relations between all these notions and to enable us to
come up with a cohesive design.
Step 2
A rough overview of the components in the context of the application domain
Before looking at the diagram, let me first explain the thoughts I had prior to
coming up with this diagram.
We are going to design an ERP. What is this all about, and where lies the
business value in it?
We are supposedly making the product for a company which makes money by sending
products back and forth. This is the core domain of the application.
The basic idea is that a product P is moved from point A to point B, and in
this process, the company makes money.
The application will allow the company to make money by both being good at
organizing the workflow, and by making an existing workflow cheaper.
Let's say a product can be delivered to point C by taking the route A -> B ->
C, or the route A -> D -> C. The ERP must be capable of deciding which one is
better (in terms of money or time), and must manage the workflow it chooses.
So the whole point is supporting the movement of products around. Around what?
Around the world.
For this reason, let's first draw our first component: the World.
In a real project, I would continue by adding a Product component. I've chosen
not to yet, because this project is an educational one in nature, and I wanted
to get across new ideas about the architecture. If I had focused on the
products, I think there would be too much noise for the type of audience this
project is aimed at, a noise which would make the process of creating the
architecture and the architecture itself harder to understand.
We will introduce a Product component later, when the reader will feel at ease
with the architecture which, at that point, he will feel familiar with.
Instead of focusing on Products, we are going to focus on Users. This is,
incidentally, also the subject of the use cases we have drawn in the previous
commit. I think that any reader can relate to the concept of User.
So let's draw that component, the User.
Architecturally speaking, it's not that much of a difference between an User
and a Product. Instead of having Products moving around, we will have (for
now), users who live in the World and take different roles while interacting
with our system.
In the previous commit, we have concluded that there would be a standard way of
passing in data from the User to the system.
In terms of DDD (Domain-Driven Design), the data that gets into the system is
packed up as a Command. Since it looks like a good name, let's make a port of
the World component called Command Hub which will be used to receive and
process Commands from the outside.
Conceptually, the Command Hub will provide a Command Interface which any other
component can implement in order to send commands to the Hub, if it needs to.
We also want to make the components decoupled and thus reusable in different
types of applications, or to be able to combine them. This is achieved by
making an event-driven architecture.
For this reason, let's give the World component an Event Hub, which will
provide an Event interface.
But what will stich together these components?
This question is so pressing, because it's so central to our architecture, that
we will have to further investigate it.
This is not an asnwer, just a comment that would not fit into the comment box
(1) if you want to "teach your readers" something you can't do yourself, it is strange approach. Show your readers the way which works for you. Show the way "your train of thoughs runs", show the the mental images you saw in your mind, paper/pencil/photo in whatever visualization language you use
(2) you're skipping the uml-diagrams: UML 2.5 Behavior Diagrams as not useful? Even the uml-diagrams.org: UML Interaction Overview Diagrams not useful?
(3) this question looks like too broad(long) perhaps opinion-based and perhaps off-topic much more suitable for https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic
(4) for the recommended modeling workflow look at
(4.1) Cangnus's sequence diagramming comment in Stack Overflow: sequence diagram for books exchange
(4.2) BobRodes's use case scenario comment in Stack Overflow: Formal language for UML sequence diagrams
(4.3) Scott W. Ambler's Agile Modeling: Where Do I Start? for what when how and why Agile Modeling Best Practices
to name just a few
In conclusion of this my long comment, I don't see any mistakes you did. If this is description of how Test-driven Development and Domain-driven design works for you so well that you even use it subconsciously then it is just fine and ok. Being a good teach is not an easy task, good luck
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The Product owners have specific requirements around how the Product should enable the users in a complex business process workflow (approvals and what not). The easiest way to document the requirement is in the form of a process diagram/flowchart.
In Scrum however, it is advised for requirements to be in the form of user stories. What is the best way to approach this?
Option 1
Have generic user stories that encompass the workflow, and attach the flowchart diagram as a supporting document. e.g. As an author, I want to be able to submit my article for approval process so that it will get published.
Pros
it's easier for people to understand and digest - rather than reading 10-20 user stories.
Cons
it becomes an epic
Option 2 Break down the complex flowchart into its own user stories. e.g.
As an author, I want to be able to submit my article.
As an editor, I would like to get notified when an article has been submitted so that I can review it.
As an editor, I need to approve an article
As an editor, I would like to be able to request for more information
...
Pros
pure Scrum. easy to prioritize/estimate/plan
Cons
As you can see even a short business process workflow will easily explode into a lot of user stories.
I agree with pma_. Do what makes sense. In this case, you have some great looking user stories.
"As an editor, I would like to get notified when an article has been submitted so that I can review it."
If you have a ton of these, then perhaps they are too small. They would all be 1-2hrs. That's probably not a good thing to have. In that case, try grouping them. Perhaps
"As an editor, I want to be able to manage articles". That would include several of the ones you have already.
Keep in mind the goals of user stories...
Track items on a burndown chart
Deliver fully functional work (not an unusable subset of work)
Have estimatable portions
If you can achieve those goals, you're good. If not, try again.
Oh, and one last thing - keep the flow diagram, don't throw it out in favor of stories. But supplement the stories with it.
If this business workflow is like most business workflows, each of those steps will have a significant number of rules. Those rules should map into acceptance criteria for those stories and ideally, automated tests to prove that the code works as intended. Because of the potential for a lot of acceptance criteria, I would lean towards the second option.
I tend to go towards Features/Epics early on with the core end user/stakeholder value-adding functionality, such as in your example to "Publish an article so that the subscribers can get the latest news". Then once the Feature is getting closer to implementation I'll split it into implementation sized stories if needed.
Most non-trivial business workflows benefit from being split up during implementation so that they can be continiously deployed and verified in order to get early feedback from the stakeholders. The big con of having everything as one big bang implementation is late validation. I think that having early feedback is outweighing the increased administrative burden of handling multiple stories.
A tip on how to split epics into stories: Lasse Koskela has a great writeup on how to split stories in different ways.
For me all agile is about using common sense. I this case you have perfect desing so just implement one and don't look for unecessary things.
We're currently building a business process based content management system. We split our processes into stories as per your 2nd option.
But, of course, we keep the flow diagram handy. In fact, we print it out and stick it to the wall. We even keep every old version of it so we've our own paper based version control stuck to our wall (in addition to using git for the electronic version ;-) )
In Scrum however, it is advised for requirements to be in the form of user stories. What is the best way to approach this?
The two options that you have mentioned are not really options, they are sequential stages, IMHO. During Agile Requirements Gathering or Product Planning the first step is to create EPIC stories. After you have those Epics, you need to break them down into smaller chunks.
Without the EPICs you will most likely to run into the issue of creating random stories without getting a grasp on the sense of belonging of a story. You can in a way create a hierarchy in User Stories. Without understanding that, everything is just random, hence it makes it tougher to wrap your head around or manage the stories as a PO.
Offcourse there is much more to all this than what I mentioned in the above paragraph. That's why probably you need an experienced Scrum Coach or do a lot of diligent reading/implementing on Agile Planning and User Story writing.
Hope this makes sense. I would suggest reading Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn for anyone who even remotely thinks of taking up a PO role. Best of Luck!
Workflows are an interesting entry to writing user stories and epics, but user stories don't map to work flows, they map to business capabilities. So you are incorporating some fallacious thinking from the start in this question. Workflows are a good tool for the conversation, but will live independently of workflow as they are about functionality, not timing. Timing lives in the business rules.
On that note, business rules are not Acceptance Criteria, they are the connection between Acceptance Criteria, which are features that can be demonstrated by a product owner, and Test Cases. Again, Acceptance Criteria are about features, not behavior. Behavior lives in the business rules.
For instance I might have User Story for an ATM that says "As a user, I can check my account balance." And the Acceptance Criteria could be "If I am overdrafted, I get an alert notice." The rules for what constitutes an over draft (I had $1000 in my account and deposited my $2500 pay check, but that won't clear before my $1500 mortgage payment, etc.) are not acceptance criteria. They are business rules whose execution results in the demonstrable action of the Acceptance Criteria. Note, that this user story could be captured through a workflow analysis, but might live in many workflows (or none).
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If I divide development of a particular feature into multiple stories:
First one for a high level design of the feature,
Based on first story I create other stories to develop the different stand-alone pieces that compose the feature,
Does it mean I'm doing waterfall?
Furthermore - if I divide development of the previously identified stand-alone pieces into design and implementation.
Would that mean that I'm doing waterfall?
Note: I am big time Scrum novice.
There is no such thing as design and implementation stories, User Stories should provide some level of end-to-end functionality to the user (i.e. delivering customer value).
The fact that you are mixing the terms stories and features doesn't help to communicate but what you're describing sounds actually like tasks (Sprint Backlog level), not user stories (Product Backlog level).
And if they are not tasks, then they are very bad stories. Maybe the "functionality" is too big and you should put the story on diet but what I see here is a typical story smell.
If you are new to User Stories, I strongly recommend to use the regular template (As a <type of user>, I want <some goal> so that <some reason>) and also to follow the INVEST model. This will really help you to avoid pitfalls like the one of your question.
Back to the real question (Am I doing waterfall?): there is nothing wrong with doing so design inside a Sprint (as a task of a story). But if your whole story is about design, you're not really doing Scrum, you are supposed to deliver a demonstrable end-to-end increment at the end of the Sprint.
Scrum stories tend to be about "business value":
Business value is a concept that describes the relative worth of any development effort to the business. Business value is often unquantifiable, but often relates to money.
You can think of business value as something that could still be sold if the project was stopped.
If you write a story to create: "a high level design of the feature", what you would produce by implementing that story isn't something that the business can sell. It's not something customers can try, buy, use. In effect, the business value of that story is zero.
You might have better luck thinking about stories "vertically". "Vertical slices" are minimal features that cover your entire technology stack. For example: "A user should be able to enter their name in a text box, click a button, and be shown their record in the database." It's not, by itself, especially useful, but it is more valuable than a feature design.
No, you're not. The sub tasks can be added to the backlog (presumably with roughly equal priority so they come out around the same time) and then the super-task would be to integrate/test/etc the separate components.
It sounds like a valid way to breakdown a large component to me. Just make sure you size up the different chunks appropriately. I've found 4-16 hour chunks work best. Giving 40 hours for a task means they'll do 2 hours of work until Friday when they cram the other 32 in (along with lots of bugs).
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Should technical items such as "Upgrade sever from v1 to v2" or "Increase startup performance" or "Refactor login module to reduce code complexity" go in to the product backlog and if so how should a non technical product owner be able to prioritize them v.s other more functional backlog items?
Should there be a separate backlog for technical stuff? Should we have a joint PO role with two persons that could prioritize functional and technical stuff on the product backlog?
Usually in the 'vanilla' SCRUM the technical tasks you mentioned will not go as separate stories.
To me the non-technical PO should not be looking at the stories like 'Upgrade the server'. It's not a business story, it is not visible to the end-user so it is difficult to prioritize if it is formulated this way. Priorities should be assigned according to the business value of the work. 'Upgrading' does not mean much. 'Allowing more simultaneous connections', 'Reducing the downtime' or even 'improving the team velocity' might provide much more valuable insight to a non-technical person. If you cannot find a non-technical description ask yourself a question about the necessity of the upgrade :)
The 'refactoring' story is even more complicated. Did you ask yourself why is it a story at all? Refactoring could be done as a task in the story but it is rarely a story on itself. So if you want to make login work better or provide more features that's a story but tinkering under the hood does not count as one. Please also note that refactoring without a business purpose could easily lead to a so-called 'gold plating'
I would suggest doing the 'upgrade' stories as a spike with the 'improve performance' and 're-factor' being the tasks for a relevant business story.
P.S. You might find a good discussion on this topic (mostly in part 3 of it) in the excellent book by Mike Cohn called "User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development".
I agree with the view of looking at the business benefit of any technical story and tracking it on the main product backlog
I do think that there are internal stories related to the velocity/capability of the team, which are sometimes more conveniently managed by assigning some capacity to the developers, especially when the Product Owner is not interested to prioritize or manage those stories.
E.g. assign 10% capacity to test automation backlog (of legacy regression), CI server setup, etc.
Yes, everything can certainly be expressed in business terms, but some of it should be considered "the way we need to do our job" where there is trust between Product Owner and team that the team will make best use of the capacity assigned for this.
I have had success with the dual backlog approach:
Product backlog is owned by the product owner. It contains story-level items (features) that get estimated by the team and then prioritized by the product owner. This estimation process splits the stories in smaller tasks.
Team backlog is owned by the development team. It contains task-level items that are relatively small (can be completed within a sprint). They can be linked to stories for example as impediments: to complete the story, the following technical tasks have to be completed first. They can also be independent so that they are not required for any story per se but they pay back some technical debt to enable higher velocity in the future.
(On some large, multi-project programs I've also had program backlogs that contain epic-level items, owned and prioritized by a program management team, to be split to stories into product backlogs further on.)
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In my company we have the programmers, front end developers, designers, and UX team all participate in Agile groups. I am no Agile master but I understood that all members of a team should be able to be able to do any of the work. Having designers, the UX team, frond end developers, and sys admins join in on a vote to estimate how long a backend task will take seems crazy to me. I barely know! So my question is am I being too harsh? Can this work in an Agile environment?
You have got the base concept wrong...all members should be able to work across stories. Not total cross-functionality...a developer cannot suddenly emerge to be a UI designer.
And no. of members per team is restricted to 7 -10. So that group should be segmented accordingly.
In my company we have the programmers, front end developers, designers, and UX team all participate in Agile groups. I am no Agile master but I understood that all members of a team should be able to be able to do any of the work.
IMO, this is a misunderstanding. Being a cross-functional team doesn't mean that every person on the team should able to do every job. It means the team should be a right mix of people with the right skills (as a whole) working toward a common goal. In other words, Agile isn't looking for one person with all the skills, Agile is not against specialization. Everyone can't and won't be equally good at everything.
Having designers, the UX team, frond end developers, and sys admins join in on a vote to estimate how long a backend task will take seems crazy to me. I barely know! So my question is am I being too harsh? Can this work in an Agile environment?
First, when using planning poker, nothing says that you need to have convergence at the first round. Actually, I think that having divergences is good, just let people explain why they voted this way, with their certainties and their doubts, and go for next round. Regardless of people expertise area, I bet it won't take more than 3 rounds to find a consensus. Second, after a few iterations, you'll have enough historical data to compare against ("this story is like this one") and this will help a lot, independently of the specialization of team members. Third, as reminded by JeremyMcGee in a comment, team members will get a better understanding of what is going on and of the roles of each other which is another great effect. So, to me, yes, this can work and having different set of skills is a strength, not really a weakness.
The short answer is yes.
Even teams of pure developers will tend to self organize into specialties or owners of specific subsystems (unless you tend to force them to rotate work, but that is a topic for a different issue). Therefore, you will be estimating stories with a significant number of members in the room that have little knowledge of the subsystem work associated with the story.
Story estimation is supposed to be more about comparing scales of complexity/work. It this two times, four times, eight times (or similar scales) more work than defined base point. Or, is it similar to this other item we rated at eight. At least that's the goal. At the sprint level (versus overall backlog), I find teams prefer to estimate with more concrete scales (ie hours).
For people in specific disciplines, you may or may not want them to be included in the estimation process. If those individuals have a reasonable understanding of the complexity of the task, there estimates may be just as good as another member. If not, then they shouldn't provide an estimate.
One benefit of including their estimates as it often creates more outlying estimates (overly high or low). When we have an item with estimates outside of a reasonable envelop, it is a trigger to have a short, but deeper discussion of the work. Often, that discussion forces a group discovery of work/complexity that wasn't obvious from the story description and acceptance criteria.
Agile teams are supposed to be "cross-functional" - i.e. have lots of specialists working together with some overlap.
For web development, and even for IT infrastructure, it can make sense to have a DBA, designers, business analyst, programmers (whatever different skillsets you need) and IT infrastructure people on the same team.
Not all members of the team have to be working on it full time - but any department or specialism that could delay the project or cause misunderstanding by not being involved has to be represented by somebody with enough power or skill to do those actions.
Don't forget to involve people:
who need to sign things off,
people who administer common facilities like DNS, LDAP
network admin
people who buy and maintain hardware,
security people...
I have been involved in projects where the software was ready on time but the DNS or the hardware wasn't - which is a #fail as far as the customer is concerned. What things outside your control are you going to need help with? Team leads, coaches and scrum masters should be looking an iteration or two ahead to get the right people involved.
Getting all the right people involved in estimates and kickoff meetings - including technical sales and the business is critical. Tech sales may think they can't help but often they can answer questions about what the customer wants that can help create a consensus in estimates.
Agile is about cooperation and common sense. That said, I think it will basically boil down to the actual team. Can they cooperate efficiently? If not, you might need to fix it. What does your retrospects tell you? Agile is a path, not the destination
Today with all the mixed technologies that has to work together in a product all developers have to take a wider view how their part interacts with the rest of a product. So getting a team mixed is good I think, but getting the team to talk openly and work together is not always easy. People can be difficult.