His Scrum Master's Voice

  When should you split a user story? Think "when would you slice a fruit?" A banana is big but manageable you'll probably eat it whole. You might want to slice it in certain circumstances. A peach could get messy so i'd rather slice it A kiwi is small but its hairy, i'm definitely slicing that! Deciding when to slice a user story is not always easy. Often its difficult to apply hard rules. Its usually a balance of size and complexity. In the above examples, a banana represents a big story that isn't complex, should size alone determine whether to split it?  The kiwi represents a story that is small but highly complex, we know its hairy, we know we shouldn't bite straight into it but how to slice it is not obvious either? peel first? slice first? The peach represents the story I see most often. It represents uncertainty. Once you bite into a peach you discover if it is hard, soft, juicy, extremely juicy! If you slice it up first then yo...

One of the most common agile anti-patterns I witness is a compulsion towards breaking user stories into tasks. Tasks take focus away from stories The problem with tasks is that they take the focus away from user stories. Teams that focus on completing tasks risk losing sight of the real value which lies in the stories. They are often unable to see the wood for the trees. How often have you seen sprints that are? •             On day 9 of 10, but <30% of story points are complete •             On day 5 of 10, but <10% of story points are complete •             On day 9 of 10, with 90% of tasks complete, but still <30% of story points complete I firmly believe this is a by-product of too much focus on tasks and not enough focus on stories. Tasks themselves add little or no value on the...