THE USER STORY IS DEAD LONG LIVE THE

THE USER STORY IS DEAD… LONG LIVE THE USER STORY ADAM BORROWS SEPTEMBER 2018

New Ideas Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

“ Agile doesn’t work for data science / R&D / ops / my team. ” Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

USER STORIES AREN’T WORKING FOR US § They don’t speak to a common language between the business and engineering. § Hard to prioritise. § It’s hard to estimate and track progress. Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

You are the product owner! Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

“ As the speaker running a conference session on user stories, I would like a paper airplane which flies the furthest, to help convey my point” Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

We need a dev team… Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

“ As the speaker running a conference session on user stories, I would like a paper airplane which flies the furthest, to help convey my point” Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

§ What is furthest? § I haven’t changed § The value hasn’t changed § The how hasn’t changed § Timebox? § “I want the best model you can build” Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

Which one should we do first? When should we switch tactics? Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

§ “As the speaker running a conference session, I would like the paper airplane to be blue so that it flies the furthest” § “As a visitor to the website, I would like more RAM in the server so that it runs faster” § “As a visitor to the website, I would like the CPU upgraded in the server so that it runs faster” Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

A better way… Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

§ Hypothesis: “We think that constructing the airplane from blue paper will improve the flight distance” § Try to disprove it: “Construct 2 airplanes identical except for their colour, launch them identically and measure if there is a significant difference in flight length” Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

§ Hypothesis: “We think adding more RAM to the webserver will make it run faster and reduce users abandoning the basket” § Story: “Try running a profiler against the webserver to see if memory usage is a bottleneck” § Story: “Run tests varying the delay in adding items to the basket and measure drop off” § Hypothesis: “We think adding additional data to the model will improve the classification” § Story: “Try adding Wikipedia data and see if this results in reduction in misclassification” Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

What about estimation, prioritisation, and tracking progress? Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

“As the speaker running a conference session on user stories, I would like a paper airplane which flies the furthest, to help convey my point” Materials Design Launch Technique All the potential factors in a hierarchy Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

“As the speaker running a conference session on user stories, I would like a paper airplane which flies the furthest, to help convey my point” Materials Design Launch Technique Write stories to disprove as much as possible Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

PRIORITISATION Materials Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

“As the speaker running a conference session on user stories, I would like a paper airplane which flies the furthest, to help convey my point” Materials Design Launch Technique Progress… Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

“As the speaker running a conference session on user stories, I would like a paper airplane which flies the furthest, to help convey my point” Materials 95% 5% 33% Design 30% 70% 33% Launch Technique 10% 30% 60% Weigh outcomes Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

So no magic, nothing special, no slight of hand. Just core agile principles. Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

REAL LIFE Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

“ I think that changing something as simple as the format employed for user stories can increase a team’s acceptance of agile, and help them focus on the things that are important to them” Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential

THE GUILTY Thank You! Alex Fokas Rebeca Corona Marc Kerr Richard Atkins Mark Rogers Suiyi Li Nina Friedrich Oracle Data Cloud | Confidential