Willy Wonka & the User Story Factory

Once upon a time, there was a race in the land of Business Competition to create a Golden Ticket prize winning product which would allow the innovative organization to gain dominant market share. Many Product Owners near and far sought to implement the coveted Agile Scrum methodology to deliver a valuable high-quality product to the market quickly, and in a responsive and transparent manner.

As a way to support the Product Owners, a local Agile Coach named Willy Wonka extended an invitation to all candidates to attend his Product Owner Boot Camp to be hosted at his User Story Factory. The purpose of the boot camp was to provide instruction on how to create good user stories which were important as they developed their go-to-market products.

There were five lucky Product Owners who signed up for the boot camp:

Charlie Bucket – a new Product Owner, the least familiar with Agile Scrum, signed up with the intention of learning all that there was about Agile Scrum and working hand-in-hand with his team to deliver the best product possible.

Veruca Salt – an impatient and quick-tempered Product Owner working at a company which was considered to be a developer salt mine by the local software community.

Violet Beauregarde – a Program Manager, was also newly transitioning into the Product Owner role and was accustomed to managing several projects at once with a high level of delegation.

Mike Teavee – a very tenured employee with a very big company where it was often difficult to get projects accomplished because of bureaucracy.

Augustus Gloop – an idea guy at heart, experienced recent product market success, albeit rather expensively.

As the Product Owners arrived to the User Story Factory, Willy Wonka began the boot camp by familiarizing them with the most important aspect of Agile Scrum – he introduced them to the Oompa-Loompa project team who quickly broke out into song and dance, singing:

Oompa Loompa doompadee doo I've got a perfect puzzle for you. Oompa Loompa, doompa dah dee, if you are wise you’ll listen to me. What do you get dehumanizing your team, making them feel as if you’re thankless and mean? What do you think will come of that? I don’t like the look of it. Oompa Loompa doompadee dah, if you are patient you will go far. Your team morale will achieve your goals, like the Oompa Loompa doompadee do

Willy Wonka then informs the group that a good user story is a concise written description of a piece of functionality from the point of view of the user or owner of the product, and that story should be detailed enough for the team to work from. As any good Agile Coach would do, Willy further extends his explanation by describing the four (4) Cs of a good user story:

• Card is the first C he exclaims. The key to a concise user story is to make sure that its contents can conceivable fit onto an index card.
• Conversation is the second C, Willy Wonka goes on to say, and represents the communication that the team has to understand the details related to the stories.
• Confirmation, the third C, is the process for making sure that the user story has been completed and is working as expected.
• Capture, the fourth C introduced by Willy Wonka and never heard of before by the Product Owners, are the elicitation techniques for gathering the requirements and keeping track of them and the related changes.

At the end of this session, Veruca Salt began to verbally protest in a loud voice claiming, “I WANT IT NOW! This is a complete and utter waste of time. I know fully well how to make a team productive. You detail exactly what you want them to do, cut their time estimates down, and manage them to completion.” And with said outburst and disruption, the Oompa-Loompas asked her to leave the boot camp.

Acting as if nothing has occurred, Willy Wonka, the consummate Agile Coach proceeds with the next session explaining the concept of investing in the process for creating user stories. Willy explains that invest is an acronym:

Without haste, Augustus Gloop sharply stated to the group, “I am certain that my experiences with idea generation will more than suffice. I believe the bigger the idea, the better. That goes for features as well. Furthermore, I know far more about ideas for features than any team member could possibly fathom. Their input will not be required.” His big fat attitude landed him into the User Story Factory’s waste water extraction river, and he was whisked away.

Saddened by Mr. Gloop’s statements and misfortune, Willy Wonka explained to the remaining three Product Owners that the next session focused on the process for getting user stories ready for the team to act on. This just-in-time, Kanban process for preparing user stories is delineated into four Rs as defined by Tony Shawver, MATRIX Agile Practice Leader.

Raw – Working with all relevant Stakeholders and Business Analysts within the organization to form a Product Owner Team, the Product Owner Team discusses all concepts and ideas as well as any impacts to the organization, eventually funneling them into the Product Backlog and labeling them as Raw.

Refined – By first prioritizing the most important stories to be worked, the Product Owner Team, meets with all stakeholders who will be impacted by the final product to elicit input and adding the details necessary to Refine the story for the Scrum Team.

“Wait just one minute!” exclaims Violet Beauregarde, “I am far too busy with too many projects to involve so many people in my user story writing process.”

Willy Wonka details that this level of involvement is key to having buy-in from the business and to adequately identify any potential issues with the existing systems. Violet goes on to say, “This should be something that my Scrum Team and I can do without involving other areas of the business.” With the nod of Willy’s head, the Oompa-Loompas kindly escort Violet from the remainder of the boot camp.

Willy Wonka emphasizes to the remaining Product Owners that Agile is a process which uses real-time feedback to develop the highest quality product, delivering pieces of that product incrementally to produce business value. Leaving individuals out of the “C” for Conversation is not the Agile way.

Reviewed is the next of the four Rs Willy continues with. Reviewed is the part of the user story writing process which involves the Scrum Team. In the already prioritized order, the Product Owner reviews the user story with the Scrum Team during the Backlog Refinement Meeting to answer any questions and to provide the initial estimates for each story in the Product Backlog.

Yet again, another Product Owner from the remaining two chimes in. Mike Teavee asks, “Once stories are refined, can’t the Scrum Team just start working? Why the need to have so many conversations about the stories? This feels like more layers than we currently have in place and will take much longer. This process is not for me.”

Willy Wonka acknowledges his questions and replies that “incorporating the Agile Scrum methodology will be a learning experience for Mike’s company. It will be important for Senior Management to buy-in and encourage the organization to adapt to the changes.” Willy further says, ”Like any change to something new, initially it will take your organization months to become efficient with the philosophy of Agile Scrum, but the benefits of reduced rework, enhanced work product, and motivated and inspired team members will outweigh your bumpy beginnings.” Still not convinced, Mike looks to the Oompa-Loompas and asks to be directed to the exit.

Ready – With feedback from Stakeholders and the Scrum Team, all outstanding questions about the stories have been answered and the Scrum Team is Ready (fourth and final R) to commit to Sprint workloads because the stories are Ready for development.

As the only remaining Product Owner, Charlie Bucket says, “Thanks Willy Wonka. Your Product Owner Boot Camp has given me a thorough understanding of how to create good and meaningful user stories!”

With a sheepish grin on his face, Willy Wonka congratulates Charlie for enduring the training and ends with one additional piece of wisdom. “Charlie”, Willy smiles and says, “you must also keep in mind that although Agile is an as-needed documentation process, you must include processes for the fourth C. You must be able to work with your Business Analysts to adequately Capture all of the Conversations, Confirmation, and Cards into a system which will allow your organization to learn from itself. Agile is about three main components: Learning, Evolving, and Delivering! Good luck and I look forward to seeing your finished product on the market.”

And Charlie and his team went on to create one of the most successful products of all time and lived happily ever after.