How Thin is Thin? A Practical User Story Workshop

User Stories are a fantastic way of elaborating what’s needed in order for a system to meet a business need. The advice to make stories “thin” is confusing, though, since thin is relative to what you already know. Come and learn what we really mean by thin and to exercise your storywriting skills!

Most of us have heard the mantra, “Slice your User Stories as thin as possible!” In my travels as a coach since the early 2000’s, however, I’ve rarely seen stories that truly are thin. What are these rare creatures? Why don’t I see more of them? Having good User Stories is crucial to the success of teams using them as the means for determining what needs to be built to fulfill a customer’s need. Having thinly sliced stories is even more important!

This workshop provides a level set on what stories are and explores why slicing stories very thin is important, what benefits thin slicing provides, and how to do it. Through a combination of examples and practical application in the session, you’ll leave with slicing techniques that you can apply at your very next planning or refinement session.

I’ve been working with and teaching groups how to work with User Stories for almost 20 years. In fact, I learned about stories from the people who invented them! I’ve given this session before both formally at conferences and informally at clients, and the response has universally been positive.

Required for the session is a projector and microphone. I will supply sticky notes and markers.

#NoBigProcesses

You may have heard about the #NoEstimates movement, and even #NoProjects. Both of those are keen to examine the assumptions behind two key aspects of delivering software. But what about the process itself? Do we even need approaches like Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, or Extreme Programming in order to be successful? Is following a pre-defined process helpful at all? Is there a simpler way to be effective?

This session starts with two key principles common to all successful software delivery approaches, and builds out from there based on the experience of the participants. Like #NoEstimates and #NoProjects, the name doesn’t really mean to eliminate process altogether, but rather to build a process that works for your team in your business domain with your technology stack.

They key outcome from this session is that a group doesn’t necessarily need to begin with a “canned” process such as Scrum, SAFe, LESS, DAD, etc., but rather can start with nothing but two key principles and build out from there. The result will be a process that’s completely tailored to each individual team or group and actually works with them rather than impeding them.

This session is intended for anyone with an interest in the process of delivering software. It will be of particular interest to managers and executives who oversee software development teams and programs.

Tasty Dog Food! Two Years of Taking My Own Advice

In 2015, I became a Software Development Manager at a startup in Ottawa. In doing so I landed in the role that was quite often the target of the Agile coaching I had been providing for many years. It was time to eat my own dog food!

This talk reviews the ups and downs, trials and tribulations of my time as a manager, with advice of mine that I took, advice that I threw away, and advice that I modified.

In this talk you’ll learn that even Agile Coaches are fallible! 😀 We examine common coaching topics and how well (or not!) the advice I had given others had worked for me when I had to actually apply it. The primary goal is to determine how to take what I learned and apply it in your organizations and business domain.

Confessions of a Flow Junkie - Maximizing Flow Within Your Work

We are literally surrounded by examples of how disrupted Flow affects our daily lives! Vehicular traffic, grocery store lines, and even making dinner in your kitchen all require Flow in order to work effectively.  However, software delivery in general seems to ignore how disruptions in Flow cost time and therefore money. When I ask about how people feel when they're able to work uninterrupted for a reasonable number of hours, I consistently hear terms like, "In the Zone" and "On Fire" and there is palpable delight when they speak of those times.  That's what Flow feels like!  If it feels that good, why not seek to achieve it as often and for as long as possible?

In this session we will explore the concepts behind Flow at a number of different levels and why it's so critical for success. Through hands-on activities, we'll experience what Flow is, how it feels and what happens when it's disrupted. This will allow you to take away key actions that you can implement immediately to improve your team & organization's Flow.

There is no prerequisite for this session, except perhaps curiosity!

This session will need a projector and one empty table at the front of the room, and the most effective table setup would be a number of round tables that allow for group discussion.

The preferred duration is 60 minutes, although it can be condensed to 45.