I totally agree with you. In 2021 I believe Mike is still bang on the money. What I find interesting is a new trend of trying to use Kanban but without any planning. I.e. pull solutions through the system. Developoment that pays talks to this in a latest video where Gary pins down the 7 f's. I.e. Foundation, Flex, Focus, Flow, Fuel, FAREWELL (TO PLANNING), Fine Tune. I watched a few teams trying to get this to work and production fell right off. I.e. you must have a project process (scrum or etc.) in order to "mind the gap" and user stories are the best way I know to pin down requirements. Mike's way with the 3 c's really "crushes" how to do it well. He has many books and these are all highly recommended.
This video clarifies so many things I've seen being applied but never truly understood. Now I "got it", it's so sad to think so many people is still following procedures and templates without getting the rationale behind them, particularly the backlog grooming part. I think an essential aspect many teams miss about Agile is picking the smaller tasks which we know we can implement in a couple of weeks, so that we can actually deliver them. The way I've seen it done is a bunch of seniors adding specs to the user stories many times carrying them from one sprint to another, which kind of defeats the purpose, turning the process into a "Kanagilebanscrumfall" (notice the use of "Agile ban"). Thanks!
This was crucially helpful watching this today. As an agile coach / PO for almost as long ago as your video was posted, this is by far the best breakdown on this topic I’ve seen... if only I’d seen it at my start lol... no worries though starting tomorrow this will be applied in many productive ways - thanks mike!
Hey Mike, I am interning in Product Management at a big ERP software provider and am new to User Stories. Dude, this talk is insane! Among all the videos on RU-vid I checked out, you make this understandable and easy to follow. So much fun watching this, thank you!!
It's the best video around on writing user stories !!! It made me watch all the others videos of you Mike :) I am glad that I came across this beauty...
Mike, thanks for sharing. It is nice to see a presentation from an obviously experienced professional that isn't simply selling something and includes practical insight.
Thanks Mike for this great video! I deployed a big project in Waterfall (for over 2 years) and now im only working in Agile. Really appreciste your video!
Awesome presentation! Watched this one because i've been not using user stories in years and just started using it again, really great reminder and actually quit a few thinks I'm certain I would not have considered before. Next week I'm planning to look for more video's from you, this was both helpfull and entertaining, thanks!
Transitioning to an Agile project for the 1st time in the near future and this User Stories presentation is very helpful. Looking forward to reviewing more of your videos.
I think its important to always put the So That clause. It reminds everyone of the reason why you're doing something and the value delivered to the client. So that is the part that we're being judged on - so make sure So that is defined!
Sure Mike... Can certainly feel contrived. Thats for the vid btw. As a RU-vid User, I am required to login, So that I can access Mike Cohn's vids! :) There is always value in logging in... and if you can't think of it. In my workshops I teach ALWAYS put the So That. And think HARD about the So That (The better the So That, the easier the Product Owner can prioritise)
Thanks Mike for such a knowledgeable session! I anyways like and learn through your books, for the first time I went through your video and got equally impressed and got to know new things. I specially liked your Balance between development team and Management in this video. Keep posting and help us gain knowledge.
Mike, that's a great one. it is easy to follow, covers all key aspects in easy and very nice way, nice argumentation and great examples from the real life! Thanks
Thank you Mike, I received an email from my professor making reference to your book. I didn't waste a min to look for it and read it, I must tell you it helps me understand my project / coursework better.
You're welcome. I am a really big fan of your posts, books, and lessons. They have helped me immensely in my professional development as a ScrumMaster. Whenever I have any doubts about something to try with a scrum team I always look at your material for reference (for example only give points for completed work). Thank you for all the contributions that you provide to the agile/scrum community.
I have a story of inprecise words and a restaurant. I used to be a vegan and I ordered vegetarian dumplings in London. When they came I noticed there was pork in them. I challenged the waiter why they wrote vegetarian next to it. He replied it was not a lot of meat and that would count as vegetarian for them. The point is that although I thought I knew what I would get I did not get what was written due to a difference in perception. I we would have chatted a bit more before I ordered we could have cleared that right up.
Wonderful session. One query..we said in product backlog low priority stories (lower in the pyramid), can be of big size. We can break them when they are ready to work on. In this can case the estimation or project (which we get from sum story points of all stories) be accurate(or near to accurate) , as big stories may not to estimated properly.
Hi Ilessa, User stories are hard to master. They're kind of like learning to golf. So, I hope the video is helpful to people here in the US still even though it's ten years old.
I am watching the lecture on this subject and I am enjoying it. A good introduction to stories with examples. Perfect lecturing - no aahs and mmhs and oohs. Can you guide me as to how to obtain the PDU as well? - Got it!!
My question is not related to user stories but Scrum. I hope you wont mind answering it :). Can we change the time box duration of prescribed events in SCRM. such as if we learn that for last 12 sprints we have noticed we need more time than agreed for daily Scrum or sprint planning or review?. Does SCRM allow this
Great presentation, do you also have something or point me to something that concentrates more on giving examples of stories that are independent and other cases where they are not independent but necessary, in order for me to crystallise this concept. What does it mean that a story is independent even though it has precursors and successors ?
Thank you Mike, that would be really great and am looking forward to that. I also came across the following : "Stories should be atomic, so that can be started and finished in isolation from other ones (like a database transaction). Usually this completeness is achieved by defining a story as a vertical slice of an application, a feature that encompasses the database layer, the domain model and the user interface at the same time." But I guess for me to understand it I guess I need to compare different types of stories, stories that are "atomic" (excluding the database eg) and those that are not. Stories that are Vertically sliced and those that are not. Stories that are vertically sliced are they also not dependent upon say perhaps a class that was written for a preceding story which is now reused for the current story and hence if the implementation behavior in any of those stories changes such that the common 'class/object' between them also needs to change then how can such a story be independent even though it is vertically sliced ? Just thought I mention the above points so that you might address them in your new video class :-) hopefully - Many Thanks.
