development

A written user story is a very short narrative—a sentence or two—describing some small piece of functionality that has business value. User stories are intended to foster collaboration and communication, but writing these short narratives poorly can negate agile’s flexibility. Charles Suscheck and Andrew Fuqua explain some common failure patterns that will help you focus on the right role, value, and business functionality when writing stories.

Derk-Jan de Grood explains how those who have yet to embrace kanban can experience the efficiency and communication-building that the practice brings to development teams of all sizes. After defining what "efficiency" means to him, Derk-Jan explains why he's the fan of kanban that he is.

What do poker, Greek oracles, an Italian mathematician from the Middle Ages, and the path of hurricanes have in common? Given the title of this presentation, chances are it has something to do with estimation, and you'll have to attend this session to get the full connection. Kent McDonald explores the challenges and realities of trying to estimate software-related knowledge work-analysis, testing, development, and the entire project effort. A major challenge is that there are no guaranteed ways to arrive at perfectly accurate estimates, which not surprisingly is why they are called estimates. Kent introduces and gives you a chance to practice quick and practical estimating techniques that will work in different situations-guesstimating, break it down and add it up, and planning poker.

Many software people look at creating great user experiences as a black art, something to guess at and hope for the best. It doesn't have to be that way! Jennifer Fraser explores the key ingredients for great user experience (UX) designs and shares the techniques she employs early-and often-during development. Find out how Jennifer fosters communications with users and devs, and works pro-actively to ensure true collaboration among UX designers and the rest of the team. Whether your team employs a formal agile methodology or not, Jennifer asserts that you need an iterative and incremental approach for creating great UX experiences. She shares her toolkit of communication techniques-blue-sky brainstorming sessions, structured conversation, and more-to use with different personality types and describes which types may approach decisions objectively versus empathetically.