Hear about my journey for the last 30 years and my quest to understand the best way to healthy, sustainable approaches to software development.  And how I help empower each of my clients to create a relentless, continuous improvement strategy.

Also connect with me on Linkedin.  I would love to know if you've listened to one of our episodes and if it's helped you.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqueline007/

The team, along with the product owner and scrum master, needs to make sure you are keeping all forms of debt at bay.  Technical debt is only one type of debt that you can accumulate as a part of product, service or software delivery but there are others that you need to keep your eye on including: documentation debt, compliance debt, code debt, infrastructure debt, architectural debt, people debt and others.  Listen to today's podcast for more insight.

Technical Debt is the accumulation of what is known as enabler and technical stories. It's when you've built the features and not the backend processing, business rules, data and non-functional mechanics that make a story or MVP potentially shippable.  Technical debt can be intentional but you can jeopardize your agility when you unintentionally delay it until the end of the development cycle when it's very close to the time you wish to ship.  Listen to today's podcast and learn more.

Understand why your backlog should be Colorful (colored stickies), Circular (Later, Next, Now) , Prioritized, Balanced and Include Administrative Work Items (i.e. training, documentation, refactoring).

A technical story is one where the main stakeholders are the engineering/infrastructure team/leadership. The end-user benefits only indirectly from such a story. Technical stories often are non-functional requirements.  Non-functional requirements include security, performance, maintainability, usability, refactoring, infrastructure,accessibility, compliance, reusability.  (Look up Non-Functional Requirements).  

https://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2013/11/10/technical-user-stories-what-when-and-how

This episode explores Acceptance Criteria which are not exactly the same as traditional requirements, but the more you know about traditional requirements the more you can use some of the same techniques for reconciling what's missing.  Traditional Requirements are lengthy word documents vs Agile Requirements which are informal conversations and white board notes (Chalk Talk)!  In the virtual world tools like Miro are what you use for white board sessions.

Agreeing that story splitting is necessary when doing Agile is the topic of Episode #22. This episode, #24, is tips on the mechanics of story splitting.  We start by focusing on the Acceptance Criteria and looking at what makes up the Acceptance Criteria and when the Acceptance Criteria make the story too big, then taking those elements and slicing them VERTICALLY (not Horizontally - also discussed in Episode #22).  

The main elements you capture in the Acceptance Criteria:

1. Data Elements and Data Requirements (To Login the Data Required: Name, PIN Number, Accounter Number Optional: Location, Language Preference)

2. Business Rules (Happy Path: User enters a valid password;  Negative Path: User enters an invalid password; The system times out before a password is entered)

3. Process Flow and Process Steps (1. Log into the account 2. Make a Deposit 3. Check the Balance 4. Make a Withdrawal)

Agreeing that story splitting is necessary when doing Agile is the topic of Episode #22. This episode, #23, is tips on the mechanics of story splitting.  We start by focusing on the Acceptance Criteria and looking at what makes up the Acceptance Criteria and when the Acceptance Criteria make the story too big, then taking those elements and slicing them VERTICALLY (not Horizontally - also discussed in Episode #22).  

The main elements you capture in the Acceptance Criteria:

1. Data Elements and Data Requirements (To Login the Data Required: Name, PIN Number, Accounter Number Optional: Location, Language Preference)

2. Business Rules (Happy Path: User enters a valid password;  Negative Path: User enters an invalid password; The system times out before a password is entered)

3. Process Flow and Process Steps (1. Log into the account 2. Make a Deposit 3. Check the Balance 4. Make a Withdrawal)

Topics Covered: The right and wrong way to split stories in order to make the story small and to build the solution in increments; How you split stories to take the team in a direction that creates silos and scrum waterfalls (also known as scrumfalls).  The size of your stories is the root cause of endless carryover.  Carryover undermines the credibility, predictability, and accountability of the team and erodes trust.  It's kind of a big deal!

The fist of five is a tool to 

Build ConsensusCan be used for all Agile CeremoniesMake Introverted Team Members ComfortableGives everyone equal voting rightsOpens up dialogueCan determine if a conversation needs to be brought to a voteFist of Five Rules

5 Fingers - Completely Agree/ I will Champion Things4 Fingers - Agree (Not Comfortable Championing It)3 Fingers - Fully Support the Outcome2 Fingers - Minor Questions/Concerns1 Finger -  Significant Questions and Alternate Suggestion (that hasn't already been discussed) FIST - Have clear evidence / concrete data why the solution will not work (Back to the Drawing board)