Agile Development Practices East 2010: Making a Long Story Short: Splitting User Stories

When a single user story that mixes both high-value and low-value functionality is left intact, the flow of value slows. Stories that are too large increase project risk and force a longer development path even when the team would be better off with more frequent feedback. Join Bill Wake as he examines bundling, unbundling, splitting, and merging user stories. He explains and demonstrates concrete techniques for story splitting, along with high-level, user-experience, non-functional, and story-complexity lines. Come away with a toolkit of twenty ways you can split user stories, many of which will be directly applicable to your current or next project. Don't wait for a large story to be finished before benefiting from its high-value parts or force users to wait on low-value functionality. Learn how to reduce project risk and increase the pace of delivering value to your business.