Simon Baker
Posts: 1022
Nickname: sjb140470
Registered: Jan, 2006
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Simon Baker is an independent consultant, agile coach and scrum master
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There's more to done than the green dot
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Posted: Feb 23, 2010 4:34 PM
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So you're working on a user story with your pair, developing vertical slices and getting feedback from the tester and customer as you progress. You're ticking off the acceptance criteria as they're satisfied by the emerging functionality. Awesome! Everything is tickety-boo. Then the customer realizes that something is missing and asks for that something to be incorporated into the card. What do you do?
You could just refuse and ask him to write a new story and prioritize it accordingly. You could say yes, have a discussion, write the new acceptance criteria on the back of the card and carry on. Some people say no because the additional work will exceed the original estimate for the story. Some people say no because they won't be able to finish the story with the new criteria by the showcase and the card will slop.
I used to say slop was bad. I stopped saying that some time ago when I started to focus on limiting work-in-process.
I can't say what the right thing to do is because situations are different. I do say that the discussion with the customer must happen so that everyone involved understands, quite simply, whether the story will make more sense for users and provide them with greater value if the additional something is included. Perhaps the customer is pushing his luck. Or maybe he's got a point.
I always say stories are an invitation to a conversation. In the last year we've started to frame these conversations in the context of users because we've been using iteration to explore interaction designs and improve user experiences. Given the users' perspective, I came to realize that stories are also a journey taken with the customer to explore options and learn more about users. It's easy to write acceptance criteria but it's difficult to express what user experience will really work until we see a few different ones (and ideally validate them with real users). As a result, I am seeing more conversations where the customer or designers want to add something to a story when it's in play. I believe this to be a good thing providing the discussion happens and everyone agrees that the resultant delivery will be better for users.
The goal is about users and satisfying their needs, delighting them if possible with every story delivered. There's context, a bigger picture, a system and that involves how the users interact with it. It's not about velocity, estimates or slop. And it's not about ticking off the acceptance criteria and getting the green dot. That's all just process.
Read: There's more to done than the green dot
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