How I do agile - Part 2

In the previous post i had written a little bit about the import thing need to do in the initial process when we start software development project.  Project Statement from the Product Owner point of view is quite important. You really need to know exactly what project/software you are dealing with. Once your have high level overview of the project you can start jump to the core process in Scrum agile framework. Product backlog is the heart of Scrum.  The product backlog is basically a prioritized list of requirements, or stories, or features, or whatevers. Things that the customer wants, described using the customer’s terminology.

Step 2 ( Define Product Backlog)

The way we define our Product Backlog is to ask our customer/domain expert to write it what they want/need in the system using their own terminology (their understanding of the process). Product backlog actually contains a list of user stories. In my experience you need to guide them how to write a good user story otherwise they will write non process statement like their dream that nothing to do with the system.  Last year I  had an opportunity to help one company to start with agile process in their company. The software is about real estate solution. I had give simple briefing how to write user story , but because I’m didn’t guide them personally, I’m quite shock many of them write user story that are not reflected to the business of real estate but more like the comment /suggestion they want from the top management. For example “As an Agent, I want more money, so that i can buy another house“.  Actually this is not wrong , this can be our guide to ask them until we get good user story. We need to go detail with this user,and ask them how to get more money using this system? and what should they expect from the system that give them more money?. This is the question that I’m dealing with when i need to know from the customer/user.

My prefered user story template is taken from Mike Cohn .

As a [user role], I want to [goal], so I can [reason].

Hopefully this can help you to start a simple agile process within your team. I will continue InsyAllah..