Post on 05-Jun-2018
transcript
Angela Druckman
Certified Scrum Trainer
adruckman@danube.com
Building a Better Backlog
Strategies for long-term success in Agile
development
2 Copyright © 2010 CollabNet, Inc. Portions used with permission. All Rights Reserved.
2
Overview
•What is a Product Backlog?
•Writing Product Backlog Items
•User Stories – an Overview
•Grooming the Product Backlog
•Adding Detail
•Estimating Product Backlog Items
•A brief introduction to relative estimation
•Business Value
•Refining Prioritization
•“Granularizing” the Product Backlog
•Product Backlog as Living Artifact
3 Copyright © 2010 CollabNet, Inc. Portions used with permission. All Rights Reserved.
3
What is a Product Backlog?
A prioritized list of physical and intellectual property a Product Owner
is asking for. This could be:
•New features
•Enhancements to existing features
•Prototypes
•Documentation
•Bug fixes
•Training
•Note – a list of the above items is not a Product Backlog until it is
prioritized. Until then, it is simply a “wish list”
“If it’s not on the Product Backlog, it doesn’t exist.” --Jeff Sutherland
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How to Write Product Backlog Items
A simple statement of what is desired:
•“Provide user documentation for the Accounts Receivable module”
Or a description of actions to take place
•“A customer service representative can log notes from a customer call.”
Many people find the user story format a convenient one for creating
Product Backlog items. One popular format for creating user stories is:
•“As a <type of user> I want to <take some action> so I can <achieve
some result>.
For example:
“As a Customer Service manager, I want to know average queue wait
time so I can provide adequate call center staffing.”
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5
What Are the Benefits of User Stories?
•They allow the Product Owner to create
requirements that are implementation-
independent
•They allow requirements to be written from the
perspective of different kinds of users
•They get people to stop talking about the
system and start talking about how people will
user the system
•They are a “promise for a future conversation”
•They can be linked to more extensive
documentation later if desired
•They can be written by both technical and non-
technical people
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What are the Characteristic of a Good User Story?
I – independent
N – negotiable
V – valuable
E – estimate-able
S – small
T – testable
Good user stories are about the “what” not the “how”
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Where do User Stories Come From?
Product Owners work with stakeholders to define and write the user
stories. This can be through:
•Individual meetings with stakeholders
•The Product Owner’s team, which may be comprised of requirements
experts like business analysts, requirements analysts, etc
•The Scrum team
•Story Time meetings
Anyone can add items to the Product Backlog but the
Product Owner alone determines the final priority
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Holding a Successful Story Time session
Most teams (especially early in a project) benefit from
regular Story Time sessions
The goal of a Story Time session is to leave the meeting
with a better product backlog than you arrived with. Story
Time sessions can be used to:
•Write user stories (you can even use this meeting to
create the backlog for the first time)
•Improve the quality of user stories
•Breaking down epics
•Size stories
•Add acceptance criteria to stories
•See and discuss what is coming up for future sprints
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How Much Detail Should the Product Backlog Have?
Sample Product Backlog 1. ______________
2. ______________
3. ______________
4. ______________
.
.
.
18. _____________
19. _____________
20. _____________
.
.
.
89. _____________
90. _____________
91. _____________
.
.
.
100. ____________
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10
Adding Acceptance Criteria
Acceptance criteria:
•Form the “boundaries” of the story (what
is/ is not in scope)
•Are negotiable
•Help us know when a story is complete
• Come from the dialog between the
team and Product Owner in Story Time
and Planning meetings
•Require the ability to ask good
questions
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11
Estimating Product Backlog Items
•Teams use a variety of methods to estimate
stories:
–Hours
–Ideal days
–T-shirt sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL, XXXL aka “epic”)
–Fibonacci series style (i.e. – 1,2,3,5,8,13,21…)
•Teams’ estimates of user stories are often
converted into story points, a scale unique to each
team
•The average number of story points delivered by a
given team each sprint is called the team’s velocity
Teams that use T-shirt or Fibonacci scales are using a concept called relative estimation.
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Why Relative Estimation Works
•Humans are terrible at absolute estimation but
quite good at relative estimation
•It is generally faster
•It gets a team thinking (and talking) as a group,
rather than as individuals
•It encourages spending analysis time appropriately
•It is cost-effective
Remember: estimation is a means to an end. The ultimate goal is an achievable sprint commitment
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Compare Absolute versus Relative Estimation
Estimate the
weight of the
following animals
in kilograms vs
Rank the animals
below from lightest
to heaviest
• Tiger
• Rabbit
• Squirrel
• Elephant
• Impala
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Relative Estimation - continued
Some questions you may have asked yourself
in the last exercise:
•Do I have a sense of what the lightest
creature is?
•How about the heaviest?
•Do I know what an impala is? Or do I know
someone who does? (ie – expert knowledge)
•Of the remaining animals, how do they
compare with one another?
Relative estimation is a cost-effective way for teams to
make a sprint commitment with confidence
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15
Determining Business Value
Adding a business value metric to your user stories can give the
Product Owner additional information to assist with prioritizing the
backlog. Business value is a organization-specific metric and may
include:
•Return on Investment
•Cost savings
•Labor reduction
•Growth opportunities
•First-to-market
•Opportunity costs
•Cost of not doing
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Use Estimates and Business Value to Prioritize
For example:
User Story Story Size Estimate
(xs, s, m, l, xl)
Business Value
(1 – 20)
User Story #1 Large 10
User Story #2 Large 16
User Story #3 Small 16
User Story #4
Medium 12
Knowing the value of a backlog item and the effort it will take
to deliver helps the Product Owner make good choices
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Granularizing the Product Backlog
Product Backlogs can grow quite large. It is therefore useful to granularize or
“chunk” the backlog to help the team understand the Product Owner’s long
term vision. Some chunking ideas are:
Product Backlog A
September Release
PBI #1
PBI #2
PBI #n
December Release
PBI #1
PBI #2
PBI #n
March Release
PBI #1
PBI #2
PBI #n
Product Backlog B
Financial Accounting
PBI #1
PBI #2
PBI #n
Materials Management
PBI #1
PBI #2
PBI #n
Production Planning
PBI #1
PBI #2
PBI #n
Product Backlog C
Front Burner
PBI #1
PBI #2
PBI #n
Back Burner
PBI #1
PBI #2
PBI #n
Freezer
PBI #1
PBI #2
PBI #n
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The Product Backlog is a Living Artifact!
Product Backlogs require continuous attention
and grooming to:
•Refine backlog items
•Add new items
•Remove outdated items
Be realistic about how much time this will take –
being a Product Owner is a full time job!