User story

About: User story is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1078 publications have been published within this topic receiving 23717 citations.

Business Value, Estimation and Metrics

Abstract: Portfolio management and the Program Management Office (PMO) often serve as barriers to Agile teams. In this chapter, we examine ways to provide the PMO what it needs, while not losing any of the agility of a fast-moving development team. We also look at how Agile teams can estimate their work and connect more closely to true business value.

Agile Plus New Army Diffused and Shared Leadership

Abstract: The Integrated Development Team#4 was set up with the objective of developing the functional area service related to the joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, which is a peculiar competence of the Italian Army ISTAR-EW Brigade. Based on the Agile Methodology, the close communication and the continuous interaction with the client enabled the team to become familiar with the complex concepts related to the IPB preparation Process. The “C3—Command, Control, and Communication,” a pillar in the military art of command, is provided by the IBM Jazz Suite, which is the core of the collaborative approach founded on Agile methodology and supporting: the speed of the participants, the coordination of their effort, and perhaps, most importantly, the communication between all team members even though on geographically distributed areas. Every team member can know which is the team’s shared goal and the work progress at every time of the day, to monitor the cost and workload optimization. To sum up, the team-centric nature of this method as well as the peculiar military tendency to focus on group dynamics ensured to build a close-knit team, willing to tackle the challenges that will be arising throughout the next few sprints.

A research agenda on using conceptual models for user story development

Abstract: Agile practitioners and researchers have identified many challenges related to the requirements in agile projects. Some of these challenges relate to documentation and more specifically the development, maintenance, and management of user stories. This research addresses some of the user stories challenges by proposing the use of conceptual models while developing user stories. Conceptual models are presentations used for domain understanding. The proposal considers development of such conceptual models automatically while user stories are developed. A detailed research plan has been developed to conduct this research.

Using Management Transaction Concept to Ensure Business and EAS Alignment in an Agile Environment

Abstract: This paper presents a causal modelling-based approach for aligning information systems development and business strategy execution. The purpose is to ensure alignment between the business strategy of the organization and the way the information system is built. The suggested approach is based on the Agile frameworks such as Scrum, SAF’e, enterprise modelling framework MoDAF, modelling language ArchiMate 3.0, and the causal modelling concept of management transaction (MT). MT concept is the normalized structure to reveal business needs content and bridges MODAF and Agile concepts. MT is used to Agile process description on the level of themes, initiatives, epics, and user stories. Data from three real Enterprise Application Software projects over a one-year period were used to test the method.

Lessons Learned to Improve the UX Practices in Agile Projects Involving Data Science and Process Automation

Abstract: Context: User-Centered Design and Agile methodologies focus on human issues. Nevertheless, agile methodologies focus on contact with contracting customers and generating value for them. Usually, the communication between end users and the agile team is mediated by customers. However, they do not know the problems end users face in their routines. Hence, UX issues are typically identified only after the implementation, during user testing and validation. Objective: Aiming to improve the understanding and definition of the problem in agile projects, this research investigates the practices and difficulties experienced by agile teams during the development of data science and process automation projects. Also, we analyze the benefits and the teams' perceptions regarding user participation in these projects. Method: We collected data from four agile teams in an academia-industry collaboration focusing on delivering data science and process automation solutions. Therefore, we applied a carefully designed questionnaire answered by developers, scrum masters, and UX designers. In total, 18 subjects answered the questionnaire. Results: From the results, we identify practices used by the teams to define and understand the problem and to represent the solution. The practices most often used are prototypes and meetings with stakeholders. Another practice that helped the team to understand the problem was using Lean Inceptions. Also, our results present some specific issues regarding data science projects. Conclusion: We observed that end-user participation can be critical to understanding and defining the problem. They help to define elements of the domain and barriers in the implementation. We identified a need for approaches that facilitate user-team communication in data science projects and the need for more detailed requirements representations to support data science solutions.