Tag Archives: user stories

Story Dependencies

As I mentioned in this post, I am pretty annoyed with myself because of the way I structured stories in the first release of my current project. Here are a few things that I learnt. First of all when we … Continue reading

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Can you shuffle your stories?

No? Neither can I and I am not happy about it. So I got my new iPod Touch. One thing I find slightly annoying is the fact that when you select an album it gives you the list of songs. … Continue reading

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A Bunker Buster coming!!!

Get Down!!! Take Cover!!! A bunker buster on it’s way here guys……been a long time since I wrote one of those But then again, as Nassim Taleb says in The Black Swan What you know can’t hurt you (much) More … Continue reading

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Choose your lanes

Starting a new project is always fun. For Agile/Lean teams setting up the story wall is a part of the fun. Some would say you are defining the process that you want to follow. The life-cycle of the user stories … Continue reading

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Can’t negotiate size… and a good thing too

In many companies the Business Analyst or the Project Manager “estimate” the project and bind developers on the project to that estimate. This is an absolutely brutal thing to do to your project. But even within agile teams where the … Continue reading

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Size or Estimate

Estimation, I think, has been one of the biggest problems of mankind. The Software development industry is no exception to this sad reality. We almost never seem to get it right. The problem with the word “estimate” is that it’s … Continue reading

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Mountains to climb

Business Analysts work closely with the customer. Each new area is a challenge. There are discussions and problems and solutions. Both the analyst and the customer get comfortable with the idea of finding better, simpler solutions. This is especially true … Continue reading

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How to eat an elephant?

The only way to do that is to cut the elephant into slices. Slices which are small enough to be eaten because the sole purpose of cutting the elephant is to make it possible for humans to eat it. You’ll … Continue reading

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Embracing Bunker Busters

For various reasons, there are situations when there is no running away from a Bunker Buster. An agile team should therefore be watchful. Once the analyst finds a potential bunker buster, he/she will have only one parameter to tweak… The … Continue reading

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Avoiding Bunker Busters

“Prevention is better than cure” and one good way of handling Bunker Busters is to avoid them. Agile teams seem to be wary of handling anything by prevention, as it requires thinking ahead and taking care of things to come … Continue reading

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