Story Kick-off

“Get everyone on the same page”

This is one of the most effective practices I have used to make sure the team is on the same page & agrees/signs-up to what needs to be built.

Having a ‘Shared understanding’ of what we are building & why we are building it, is crucial to a successful delivery.

In my view, this step is the first time the team starts digging into actual details of the story.

People involved

BA, UX, QA, Dev pair, Dev-owner/lead of the feature

The Ritual

— The BA/PO & UX —
* narrates the story that needs to be built i.e. defines the boundary of scope
Use User journeys & wireframes! Whiteboard!
* shows how it fits into the ‘big picture’ & how it will meet the business goal i.e ‘Why’ of the story
* team reads through each ‘Acceptance criteria’
* call out whats ‘not in scope’ & ‘dependencies’ on other stories
* clarify, agree & note any questions & assumptions

— The QA —
* goes over the ‘test scenarios’ she has defined for the story
* highlights negative & edge case scenarios
* defines which scenarios need to be automated by the developers

— The Developers —
* should have a clear picture of exactly what needs to be built from a business & systems perspective
* note ‘dev tasks’
* should highlight any possible blockers/risks
* could validate the estimate

Pre-requisite

* The Feature/project has already been kicked off with the entire team
* Acceptance criteria + Test scenarios are written & validated during Tech-Analysis
* ..?