I attended my first User Stories Workshop today. It wasn’t as intense or as complicated as I thought it might be, but the potential client was surprised at how much we got done in such a short space of time. Aspects of their business process came up that they hadn’t considered before too, which was reassuring – it felt like we were being thorough!
My job was to take note of the users we identified with the client, and then write each story on an index card. I’d only read about the process before but it struck me as so simple and yet effective a way to narrow down exactly what was required. I was complimented on my ability to listen and write at the same time – a skill I’ve honed over years of music journalism and interviews I guess. I also managed to eat chocolate chip cookies at the same time. Multi-tasking level: Expert.
Now all we have to do is assign each story a measure of complexity, work out what must be in the first phase and how much we can fit in around that, then divide that by time to get our velocity so we can determine how long the whole thing will take and come up with a final estimate.
Easy. Sort of.
Lauren