User story

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

Comparing Methods for Large-Scale Agile Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract: Following the highly pervasive and effective use of agile methods at the team level, many software organisations now wish to replicate this success at the organisational level, adopting large-scale agile methods such as SAFe, Scrum-at-Scale, and others. However, this has proven significantly challenging. An analysis of the extant literature reveals a disparate set of studies across each individual method, with no cross-method comparison based on empirical evidence. This systematic literature review compares the main large-scale agile methods, namely SAFe, LeSS, Scrum-at-Scale, DAD, and the Spotify model. It is the first study to analyse and compare each of the method’s principles, practices, tools, and metrics in a standardised manner. For each method, it presents not just the original method specifications but also all extensions and modifications to each method proposed by subsequent empirical research. It includes in this comparison not just commercial large-scale methods but also those that have been custom-built in organisations such as Nokia, Ericsson, and others. Based on the findings reported in this study, practitioners can make a more informed decision as to which commercial method or method component or, indeed, custom-built method is better suited to their needs. Our study reveals a number of theoretical and practical issues in the current literature, such as an emphasis on the practices of commercial frameworks at the expense of their underlying principles, or indeed any of the custom method. A set of challenges and success factors associated with the use of large-scale agile methods are identified. The study also identifies a number of research gaps to be addressed across methods.

Definition of ready: an experience report from teams at Cisco

Abstract: Definition of Ready is a set of simple rules adopted by an agile team to help them remember all the things they need to do before a development team starts work on a backlog item. Not having a definition of ready can seriously impede the flow of work through your system. This paper describes where definition of ready fits in a team's process, and how it can be used as a synchronization point for teams and product owners. This paper presents an example of definition of ready used by agile teams in Cisco. These teams have developed three levels of ready that apply for user stories, sprints and releases. The paper describes how definition of ready provides a focus for backlog grooming, and some consequences of not meeting definition of ready. The paper finishes with perspectives from different roles in the organization and how they are affected by definition of ready.

Finding the forest in the trees

Abstract: While the iterative development approaches found in Agile Software Development fulfill the promise of working software each iteration, the task of choosing which software to build first can be formidable.This experience report discusses my team's experience working with a large healthcare company writing software for use in their hospital's newborn intensive care unit (NICU). The very large scope of this project and the urgent need for delivery made project release planning difficult. Focusing on capturing feature details in XP style user stories led to confusion about priorities and release strategy. Making good use of User Centered Design user role models and task models gave us the big picture we needed to un-stick the release planning process and effectively choose the bit of project scope we needed to focus on for our first and subsequent releases.

The role of the user story agile practice in innovation

Abstract: The concept of an innovation space where different knowledge and perspectives can interact leading to innovation is central to lean thinking. The SECI framework of organizational knowledge creation identifies five enabling conditions which impinge on this space, namely intent, autonomy, fluctuation, redundancy and variety. User Stories, introduced in XP and now commonly used in Scrum, are a key practice in requirements capture. In common with lean thinking, they are user value centric, encourage rich dialogue between project stakeholders and avoiding premature specification of solutions. This conceptual paper examines user stories through the dual lenses of an innovation space and the five SECI enablers. The authors conclude that expressing user needs as user stories can support the development of innovative solutions, but that care must be taken in the design of the user stories and their application. This paper concludes with a set of recommendations to support innovation through user stories.