Over-specific Story
Problem
Key milestones are being missed due to defects and rework.
Context
- Engineering team say they can't improve their estimates because the stories are difficult to understand and incomplete.
- Product Owners argue that engineering agreed the stories when they made the estimates.
Forces
- The Go-To-Market team are making plans and sharing dates with customers based on development estimates
- Delivery dates are consistently being delayed
- Everyone is asking for more certainty about delivery dates
Supposed Solution
Product Owners spend more time writing more detail into the User Story so that when the Engineering team are ready to estimate they have everything they need.
Resulting Context
When the User Story is first accepted by the Engineering team everyone feels that it is well understood. As development progresses they start to uncover things that hadn't been considered. The Engineers make assumptions based on their understanding of the User Story. These assumptions lead to unexpected behaviour and defects. This leads to rework, and more missed deadlines.
Alternate Solution
Representatives of the whole team (e.g. devs, testers, Product Owner, design) get together and talk about the problem that needs to be solved. The person that has the most context about tells the User Story. The team build a shared understanding of the problem and their approach to solving it.