Author: Maik Seyfert

As a Product Owner I would like to know how to write good User Stories So that I can provide ideal input to teams for turning requirements into a product increment. What is an User Story? An User Story is a brief description of a certain functionality or desired feature from a user’s perspective. In an User Story these pieces of functionality or features must relate to business value. As mentioned User Stories are very brief descriptions and with that become a place holder for conversations between business people and developers When this conversations take place, knowledge is spread across all involved people and a shared understanding is the result. User Stories focus on value to be delivered to an user. …

User Stories Well Done Read more »

Most people involved in Agile Software Development are familiar with User Stories which, in it’s slimmest form, consist of a narrative and a small set of acceptance criteria. But what about Epics? What exactly is an epic and how does it distinguish from a user story, theme, initiate, spike or task? Let’s have a look what the purpose of an epic is and what it usually looks like in Agile Software Development.

After several posts around the topic of estimation and considering that estimations are often time consuming it is worth it to have a look at the alternative of not estimating at all. Therefore it is useful to become aware of why estimation is done or needed in first place. With that awareness you can asses whether these reason for estimating could be covered without the time invest for estimations. Reasons for estimations Planning right amount of work corresponding to a team’s capacity Decision making based on effort/cost versus value/benefit Prioritization based on estimated effort and uncertainty Cost calculation and budgeting of projects and initiatives Forecasting for customers and stakeholder management Release planning Get an idea on uncertainty or “readiness” of a …

#NoEstimates Read more »

Recently I’ve written a post about The Ball Point Game and about variations of the game, a game that simulates Scrum with all the sprint ceremonies, such as planning, sprint, review and retrospective. This post emphasizes the learning from a Scrum Master perspective.

Recently I’ve written a post about The Ball Point Game, a game that simulates Scrum with all the sprint ceremonies, such as planning, sprint, review and retrospective. Here is an addition to that post which offers interesting variations to the game.