A short presentation about writing requirements in the form of user stories for use in agile development projects.

1. User Stories

8. A Simple Example I want a banner ad to appear at the top of the homepage Marketing Person A new window opens displaying the site the advert was linked to 2 – Click on the advert. See a test banner ad of size 728x90 appear at the top of the page. 1 – Go to the site homepage Expected Result Step

9. A Simple Example So they tell me this is done.. Let’s see.. Step 1 – yep.. Step 2 – okay.. ..perfect, I can sign this off. A new window opens displaying the site the advert was linked to 2 – Click on the advert. See a test banner ad of size 728x90 appear at the top of the page. 1 – Go to the site homepage Expected Result Step

11. What About Technical Stories? I want to move the login code to the new controller framework… so my acceptance criteria are that I swap out the code and all the existing tests still pass! A Developer

12. Or More Technical Criteria.. I want to be able to produce an RSS feed out of the manifest XML that arrives as part of a data delivery. Format spec <rss> <channel> </channel> <item> … </rss> Note that it doesn’t say – “run x file through xsl stylesheet and..” – the person signing off can’t see that and doesn’t care how it works. Production Guy The XML file follows the RSS2.0 structure described in the attached document. 3 – Examine XML file. An XML file entitled DDMMYY.xml appears in the directory. 2 – Open a command line and run the conversion tool, e.g. makerss <nameofzip> Find the weekly delivery zip file e.g. 090107.zip. 1 – Go to the holding area server1emp Expected Result Step

18. Questions These type of “requirements” miss loads of detail. What about…? They aren’t meant to capture every conceivable detail. Remember this is an agile project. If something is missing you go ask.. And the customer has to give you an immediate answer. It’s all about conversation.

19. Questions Won’t a product designed this way be an incoherent collection of tiny pieces? That can happen, if you don’t do it properly. It is very important to keep thinking about your overall product vision and how each story contributes to the whole.

20. Questions?