- Brainstorm user stories before the tutorial
- Choose user stories for v1.2 before/during the tutorial
1 Brainstorm user stories before the tutorial
You can do this step as if the tP is a greenfield project (i.e., as if there is no AB3), to get the full experience of this activity. Some of the user stories you come up with may already be implemented in AB3, but that can be sorted out later.
- Learn the recipe for brainstorming user stories in the textbook → Specifying Requirements → UserStories → Usage.
Also learn about brainstorming and user stories.
We recommend you view the following video, as it has some additional commentary on the recipe to be used:
Follow the steps in the recipe mentioned above to arrive at user stories for the product, with your team members. If you don't follow the recipe mentioned above, you could end up with a different set of user stories than otherwise.
User stories for what version? At this stage, collect user stories to cover at least the final version you hope to deliver at the end of the semester. It is OK to go even beyond that (reason: we are simulating a project that will continue even after the semester is over).
Do not omit user stories already covered by the features in AB3 i.e., the user story should be recorded even if AB3 already caters for it.How many user stories? Aim to collect more user stories than you can deliver in the project. Aim to create at least 30 user stories. Include all 'obvious' ones you can think of but also look for 'non obvious' ones that you think are likely to be missed by other competing products.
User stories of what size? Normally, it is fine to use epic-level user stories in the early stages of a project but given this is a small project, you may want to eventually break them down to smaller user stories (i.e., small enough for one person to implement in 1-2 days). Some examples (from the iP product domain):
- Bad As a user, I can track my schedule, so that I can know when to do things.
Reason: too big, as track can involve a lot of things. - Good As a user, I can add a time to a task, so that I can record when a task need to be done.
- Good As a user, I can see the pending task that has the next earliest deadline, so that I can know what I need to do next.
- Bad As a user, I can track my schedule, so that I can know when to do things.
What format?: You may use a sentence format or a table format but do maintain the prescribed three-part structure of a user story. In particular, try to include the benefit part in most user stories as that will come in handy when prioritizing user stories later.
Submission (to be checked by the tutor later):
- Intermediate steps (e.g., persona, scenarios): Keep records these in your collaborative project document started in the previous week.
- Brainstormed user stories: Record them using an online tool (some examples given in [Textbook Specifying Requirements → UserStories → Usage → (panel) Tool Examples ]).
Use an online spreadsheet for recording user stories (e.g., Google Sheets), if you are not sure which tool to use. -- they are easy to edit, share, color, and more importantly, sort/filter.
If you put the user stories in a location other than your main collaborative project notes document (i.e., the one given here), ensure that location is viewable by the public, and the main document has a link to that location. Otherwise, the tutor will not be able to see your list of user stories.
If you choose to use the GitHub issue tracker to manage user stories, you need to set up your team's GitHub organization, team repo, and its issue tracker first. Instructions for doing those steps are in the panel below.
2 Choose user stories for v1.2 before/during the tutorial
Sidebar: Project planning, with a twist
Intuitively, you might think the right thing to do is to decide what features will be in v1.4 and then plan the intermediate versions based on that. But that's not what we are going to do.
Why? Given the difficulty of reliably estimating the effort each feature will need, any such long-range plan is likely to be inaccurate.
Instead, what we will do is to assume the current iteration is the last iteration, plan that iteration to deliver the product (based on available time), and try to follow that plan as best as we can. After the iteration is over, we plan the next iteration as if it's the last iteration. But that time, you can factor in the experience from the previous iteration to do a better job of planning.
How is that better?
- Shorter-term plans have a better chance of being accurate and doable.
- You get multiple clean shots at project planning. Each try can learn from the previous tries. Hence, more learning.
- As each iteration produces a working product, you always have a working product, which practically eliminates the risk failing to deliver a working product by the final deadline.
The goal of this activity is to come up with the smallest possible product that is still usable so that it can be implemented as v1.2, to be delivered at the end of the first project iteration i.e., NOT what you can or want to do in v1.2, but what you must do in v1.2. We try to make it small because you will have only two weeks to implement v1.2 and coding as a team is a lot harder than writing code alone.
Why v1.2 and not v1.1? v1.1 is a mere documentation update only. v1.2 will be the first version that contains functionality changes.
Do not discuss features, UI, command format, or implementation details yet. That would be like putting the cart before the horse. At this stage we are simply trying to choose which user needs to fulfill first.
- If the product can be of some use without a given user story, that user story should be left out of v1.2, even if the omission makes the product hard to use, as long as the product is not impossible to use e.g., in most cases a product can be used without an 'edit item' feature because the user can always delete an item and add a new item instead of editing an existing an item.
- Don't worry about v1.3. You can design v1.3 after v1.2 done.
- Don't worry about v1.2 being 'too small'. You can always add more features to v1.2 if you finish it ahead of schedule.
You can also select an additional set of user stories that are nice-to-have in v1.2, to be done but only if there's time left. - If possible, narrow the scope of v1.2 further e.g., narrower target user, a smaller value proposition.
Suggested workflow:
- First stage:
- Divide the user stories among team members.
- Each member will go through their user stories to discard (e.g., cross out, or move to a different location, but not delete) which are definitely not needed for v1.2.
- Second stage:
- All members discuss the remaining user stories (i.e., the ones not discarded in the first stage), and try to trim the list further.
FAQs
Q: What if the chosen user stories for v1.2 is not enough to do a meaningful work division among team members?
A: In that case, at a later stage, you can add more user stories until there is enough for a meaningful work distribution. But at this point focus on selecting the smallest sub-set of must_have user stories only.
Q: Should we start implementing v1.2 now?
A: Not at all. That is scheduled several weeks later. For now, just figure out the minimal feature set required for the product. We'll let you know when it is time to start working on v1.2.
Q: Should we omit user stories that are already supported by AB3?
A: No, you should still include them. Reason: The existing implementation might still require some work before it fits your product.
Q: All the user stories we selected for v1.2 are already supported by AB3. What now?
A: That's fine. It means you can get to v1.2 with very little effort, which is a good thing. Once you've finished v1.2, if there is time left, you can add more things to it (e.g., v1.2.1 etc.) at that time.