Background and Intent
This presentation serves as a 1 - 2 hour practice session on basic user story experience.
For this series of exercises we will:
- Break up in to small groups (4 - 5 people)
- Repeatedly:
- Work on a problem within the group
- Present findings back the the class as a whole
- Summarize and fill out any missing details
Near the end, we’ll have one final exercise where your groups will be given an assignment and compete with all of the other groups.
We’ll conclude with a “where do we go next” wrap-up.
Expectations
(Paraphrased from: Seeing your own big picture by Weinberg.
- How do you happen to be here? (Past)
- How do you feel about being here? (Present)
- What would you like to have happen? (Future)
Exercise 1
Group Exercise
Discuss the following questions within your work group. Prepare to report back to the
- What is a requirement
- How are requirements handed off
- How are requirements tracked
- What is the interaction between the people who have/define the requirements and the people that implement the requirements?
Report Back
- Report on each of the four questions back to the group. (Develop a flip-chart for each.)
- Where is there waste in your current process?
Wrap-Up
- What is one thing you could change tomorrow to address waste in your current process?
Exercise 2
Group Exercise
Review provided project and develop a few ideas for things your system should do:
IPod® Killer
Your company has recently acquired another company, which has designed yet another IPod® killer. The hardware will be available for preliminary shipment in 2 months but there is not really any kind of support for selling music. Your company has agreements with several record labels to be able to sell DCMA’ed versions of songs but not much of a web presence in this arena.
The marketing department of your company has decided to take these two assets, record label agreements and this new, as yet unnamed IPod® killer, and produce a customer experience similar to ITunes®. You have approximately 2 ½ - 3 months to produce some kind of web presence that will make using this new device fun for its target audience.
Discussions with Product Owner
During initial discussions with the product owner, a few things may become clear (if asked):
- The new player comes in a few forms but it can hold approximately 200, 400, 600 or 8000 songs.
- The cost is roughly $150, $175, $200, $215
- The players are targeted to the youth market, which is big on customization
- There are a couple of different models, targeted to teenage boys and girls
- They want to be able to sell the device, accessories and customizations online
- Customizations include engraving, decals and even multi-tone colors
- They want people to spend time on their site, like a social-networking site
- The want to support chatting
- Friends
- Share photos
- Etc., the usual social networking stuff, targeted towards teens
- They are concerned with problems that MySpace has had, so they want their site to be safe
- The device supports music and photos (including album art)
- They are working on a contract with CDDB to get track information
- They want their client to be able to rip music as well. They have licenses a product to do that for both the PC and the MAC.
Report Back
- What one idea really stood out?
- What worked in terms of generating ideas?
- What challenges did you have?
Wrap-UP
- How does this “start” compare to your project starts?
Exercise 3
Group Exercise
Who are your users? Who are the purchasers? In your groups, develop a list of candidate user roles for the provided project and give a brief description for each.
Report Back
- User roll-call
Wrap-Up
- Any stand-outs?
- Do you notice any relationship between who you think will be using your system and what the system might be doing?
Example User Stories
Online Itinerary Maintenance
- As a business traveler I want to reschedule a flight in the future so that I know I can still get home but finish an important business meeting
- As a business traveler I want to cancel a flight because my schedule changes and if I don’t update it now I might forget and lose money
- As a traveler’s representative I want to inform a business traveler of a delayed flight to keep them from spending their limited free time at the airport
Monopoly
- A Player can land on go and receive $200
- A Player can land on Reading Railroad and purchase it
- A Player can land on Boardwalk and pay rent
Online Student Store
- I’m a student who wants to purchase books for my schedule
- I’m a student who wants to purchase supplemental materials for a course
- I’m a student who needs to get the cost for the books and materials of a semester’s schedule
Exercise 4
Group Exercise
Pick one of your user roles. For this one user role, identify candidate user stories.
Report Back
- Provide one of your stories (we’ll do this round-robin)
- How was working with user roles different from just picking out ideas from a few exercises back?
- If you’re working with actual people, how many “different roles” should you interview at the same time?
Conclusions
- What stood out for you?
- Did you get any good ideas from the other teams?
Exercise 5
Group Exercise
Pick a second user role and repeat the previous exercise.
Report Back
- Round-robin again.
- How did this time feel different from the previous times?
Wrap-Up
- Do you think emphasizing roles is a good idea?
- How do you use roles (or a similar concept) now?
- Can you take this back to your work and start using it?
Exercise 6
Group Exercise
The facilitators will provide materials and basic instructions for the final project. You’ll be expected to elicit requirements. —-
Summary/Where Next
Discussion
Here are some questions to consider:
- What do you take away from this?
- Anything you can use tomorrow? In a week? In a month?
- Anything you see never using?
- Where do you see roadblocks to using user stories?
- How do you currently hand off functionality from product owners to developers?
- How much do you need to write down versus communicate?
Comments