It’s the way you tell ‘em – User stories vs Requirements

In traditional project manager, someone spends a lot of time putting together a specification, then hand it over to the development team.

Something is developed, there is a big reveal and then faces are pulled, it’s not quite what they wanted!

During a training course we were put in pairs, one person was shown a simple picture made up of shapes, and had to write down instructions as to how to recreate it. The other person then had to try to draw the same picture from just the instructions, without looking at the original, or asking any questions.

We did pretty well, but there was one point of contention – I’d been told to draw a cross in the bottom left hand corner. I deliberated for ages over whether this should be

 

Eventually I went with the one on the right – If  you’d told me to put a cross in the box, this is what I would have drawn, therefore this must be a cross.

I revealed my drawing to my partner who declared “What have you drawn a kiss for!”

Another of his instructions had been to “draw a pac man facing left” – which I did with no issue, much quicker than the people who had long instructions about drawing a circle, with a chunk out of it etc etc

 

 

I think the point of my story is that it is easy to make assumptions,  requirements are hard to describe, often what is clear to one persons (the expert in the field) makes no sense to others.

 

So what’s different about Scrum?  Two things

1.      Requirements are written in a User Story format that provides context
2.       Customer involvement

 

User stories are written in 3 parts User…Requirement…Context

e.g. Manager wants the wall blue, so that it is clear that it is associated with the shop

This is intended to ensure that the requirement will benefit at least one user type, and that there is valid reason for doing it.

 Customer involvement is also key. Scrum encourages co-location and regular conversation and demos. This means that if the developer is unsure which way round a cross should be, they can ask, or alternatively if the customer sees the builder with a colour chart, they can mention they wanted Royal Blue before too much time/paint is wasted.

 

Read a story about the importance of context – the rabbit and the cream cheese!

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