Agile
in a Flash by Jeff Langr and Tim Ottinger (card #19)
> Card
> Conversation
> Confirmation
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Cards are superb for
story derivation and planning, but focus on the dialogue they create—not so
much on their format or wording. Sail to success on Ron Jeffries’ three C’s
(see http://xprogramming.com/articles/expcardconversationconfirmation).
Card
Story cards are little physical things with purposefully insufficient space for
every detail about what should be built. They are promises for subsequent communication
that must occur. Ron says cards are tokens; the card isn’t the real thing—it’s
a placeholder for the real thing.
Conversation So,
what is the real thing? Collaborating to build and deliver software that meets
customer needs! To succeed, you must converse continually. You must continue to
negotiate supporting specifics for a story until all parties are in agreement
and the software is delivered.
Confirmation A
story’s specifics must ultimately be clear to the customer and your team. The
customer uses acceptance tests (ATs) to define this criteria. These ATs
exercise the system to demonstrate that the implemented story really works.
When all ATs for a story pass, the customer knows that the story is truly
done—the software does what they asked.
Think of stories in a
more ephemeral sense. Once you build the customer’s need (represented by the
story) in code, the story has been heard. Only the working feature and the
tests that document how it behaves remain. Rip up that card!
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