Rita/ Week 23 2019
Slice it up please!
So. This book was handed to me couple of weeks ago. Finally I finished the one where everybody lies and I thought that definitely with everything what is going on this should be a good fit for this months first edition. And it is! I always always wondered if there is an easier and more approachable way to look at epic/story way at all or we are just screwed completely. We are not.
Last month or actually by the very end of April we brought in such a story that we all thought well this is huge, isn’t ?! But at that time that what was agreed and we tried to work with all teams together and keep it all under one roof. A month later in one of retro meetings came up a topic — how we could slice our stories better? So there was a problem and everyone felt it. I was actually confused as well while running a stand up and not even knowing what was worked on already or what was about to come up. I didn’t understand very well what was ins and outs of the story and therefore it was difficult to be confident to talk about it.
So anyway, while we are reading in our book club ‘Specification by example’ and there is as well a lot of touches on stories and scopes and goals this book about story mapping definitely gives confidence that its possible to be sensible about stuff and actually by doing what is suggested its possible to learn more about the product, about people around you and think more about edge cases and sad paths or like its suggested in story mapping ask the question ‘What if..?’
Basically its me selling an idea to you that if you are struggling as well — have a read. Its really cool. By simply mapping out tasks/steps from left to right you will have your overall picture and then by thinking about each step and adding all the other stuff (smaller though necessary steps) underneath you have a shared understanding between team members and by deciding what is desperately needed for first slice, second, third… you have your stories which you can then priorities to work on first and still have a minimum valuable product, introduce that to a very little amount of your clients who will give you feedback and you can take it from there instead of concentrating on one little thing and missing out on big picture and maybe working on completely wrong user case!
Anyway, I know I am not presenting it all very well but its definitely worth to read! So add to you list now. I truly believe that if I will keep up like this I might actually reach my 25 books this year goal!
Other than that weeks been going quickly. Good feedback from operational review and service delivery review, everyone hopefully feels the difference from how it use to be and how it is now. I do believe we are not even half way there yet, but we are heading to a very good direction and hopefully we can keep our processes clear and improve them continuously. To slip from WIP limit is so easy, but if everyone is concentrated and says something when things go wrong — we can achieve even better results. To be predictable — is not easy, but imagine what it would mean if you could tell your customer that the new feature will be delivered within two weeks every time!
Stop starting — start finishing. A golden fraise that I read in one of those books! Happy weekend everybody.
