In this episode, author, trainer, and Agile thought leader Mike Cohn joins us to help you overcome the challenges with User Stories.

After listening to this episode, you'll understand:

  • Why a simple concept like User Stories is so difficult to get right
  • The types of challenges teams face when applying User Stories
  • How to overcome User Story challenges
  • What’s better than #NoEstimates

Show Notes

Successfully applying User Stories and getting value from their use is a big challenge for many teams.  It’s a simple concept, yet difficult to master.

Perhaps it’s because of our prior training that User Stories are hard to get right.  We’ve been taught all along that we need to know all of the details before we can move forward.  This is one of the biggest challenges with User Stories.

To be successful, we need to make a mindset shift.  A shift from documentation to conversations and from big design upfront to small increments.

 

Listen to the full episode to hear all of Mike’s advice on succeeding with User Stories, how to overcome some of the challenges, what he thinks of technical and job stories, and how he feels about #NoEstimates

 

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Your Homework

Get started with User Stories.  The only way to get better at it after training is through practice.

If you’re already using User Stories, seek out feedback as to the size and clarity of your stories.  Then adjust based on that feedback.

 

Links mentioned in this episode:

Mike Cohn

Mike Cohn

Mike Cohn is the author of User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development, Agile Estimating and Planning, and Succeeding with Agile. Mike is a co-founder of the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. Through his company, Mountain Goat Software, Mike Cohn specializes in helping companies adopt and improve their use of agile processes and techniques to build extremely high-performance teams. Mike is also the author of the popular and well-regarded course, www.BetterUserStories.com.

 

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