Sinan Si Alhir

Webinar Summary: Ryma's June 17th Webinar at 12EST was given by Sinan Si Alhir. Within the four-part series on Agile Product Management, this fourth webinar focused on user stories to express requirements around a product as it progressively matures toward its vision via its roadmap.

While user stories are conceptually simple, the techniques emphasize a particular mindset; and while many teams enact the techniques, they don't readily internalize the mindset, and thus don't experience the benefits. This webinar explores creating useful requirements using agile techniques, including working with user roles, writing user stories and acceptance tests, and estimating and planning.

About the Presenter: Sinan Si Alhir  has over two decades of experience in all aspects of business development, client management, and consulting services around technology products. With a proven performance record in aligning Business and Technology using industry- recognized and organization-tailored Lean, Agile, and other Best Practices, he focuses on transforming organizations and enterprises to actualize their potential and achieve an enduring competitive advantage. His clients have ranged from start-ups to the Fortune 500.

He is also a Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt (MBB), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Project Management Professional (PMP), IT Project Management Certified Professional (IT Project+), and e-Business Certified Professional (e-Biz+). He is the author of three books and two articles in the Encyclopedia of Software Engineering among other publications. And he commonly speaks at professional events.Contact Si at salhir@gmail.com  

You can learn more about and join the agilePM CoP and other Syndicated Communities of Practice by going to the CoPs page in GrandView and following links to various LinkedIn groups.

DOWNLOAD slides in PDF format

Twitter conversation on hashtag #PMV, please feel free to join us to discuss Product Management topics throughout the week on this tag as well.

ValWorkman: Join the #PMV webinar now at http://bit.ly/Igghv
Jim_Holland: #pmv Joined the webinar and ready for some great content!
ValWorkman: #PMV Covering User Stories
ValWorkman: #PMV A quick review: Agility is a value system
ValWorkman: #PMV Product success is determined by the market space
Jim_Holland: #pmv - Discussing SCRUM as a simple framework allowing it to address complex problems
HakanKilic: #pmv Joining the product management view weekly webinar now #prodmgmt http://tinyurl.com/mqhfo2 
ValWorkman: #PMV A simple process isn't always easy to do.
Jim_Holland: #pmv "Product Management bridges between the business and technology and the enterprise and the market:
phanschke: #pmv On the #prodmgmt view weekly webinar now - good content so far! http://tinyurl.com/mqhfo2
phanschke: #pmv Epics=Features
Jim_Holland: #pmv "What are User Stories all about?"
ValWorkman: #PMV Roadmaps contain visions, epics, features, ... They must be relevant to requirements
ValWorkman: #PMV Must understand the theory and the practice of User Stories
phanschke: RT @ValWorkman: #PMV Roadmaps contain visions, epics, features, ... They must be relevant to requirements- [PH] think of this as a hierarchy
Jim_Holland: #pmv "User Stories are all about problems"
ValWorkman: #PMV A requirement is not a component of Agile, but is similar to a requirement.
ValWorkman: #PMV OPs --- I meant a User Story is similar to a Requirement
ValWorkman: #PMV Use Case is a specification, User Stories focus on intent of user.
HakanKilic: #pmv Use case to drive agreement on requirements, user story focuses on intent
phanschke: #PMV - User Stories express intent
ValWorkman: #PMV User Stories involve collaboration. Normally captured on cards. "Story" think intent.
phanschke: #PMV - having well-defined personas is critical
ValWorkman: RT @phanschke: #PMV - User Stories express intent. - This seams to be a differentiator for Stories vs. Cases
phanschke: RT @ValWorkman: #PMV - User Stories express intent. - This seams to be a differentiator for Stories vs. Cases [PH] other diff is the depth .
ValWorkman: #PMV Roles in a story are called out on cards. We can group roles "Cards" into buckets.
JeremySWright: RT @ValWorkman: #PMV User Stories involve collaboration. Normally captured on cards. "Story" think intent. I like the card idea.
phanschke: #pmv - affinitization of user roles is an interesting way to see overlap of needs.
DavidWLocke: @ValWorkman I don't know that Intent is a good thing. Intent means never completing the underlying work. Tell boss, well I intended to. #pmv
DavidWLocke: @phanschke Ok, what is affinitization? #pmv
gbarrow30305: @ValWorkman #PMV intent =goals, that's what is important
ValWorkman: @DavidWLocke Were talking about capturing the intent of the user, "what are they trying to do" As a developer, we don't intend.. we do. #PMV
DavidWLocke: @DavidWLocke If the user in the user story intends to go to lunch, they would starve if they only remained intentions. #pmv
gbarrow30305: #PMV user stories: goals that are expressed independent of the product or service
ValWorkman: RT @gbarrow30305: #PMV intent =goals, that's what is important |Yes!
phanschke: @DavidWLocke affinitization - grouping of common needs. #pmv
DavidWLocke: @ValWorkman Intent is a cycle through a troubleshooting cycle. It is not the goal. #pmv
ValWorkman: #PMV Stories are decomposed into any level of depth. The team decides.
Jim_Holland: #pmv "User Roles - need to be independent as possible."
gbarrow30305: product goal: edit & upload security policy, user goal: protect the enterprise efficiently & completely w/o compromising productivity #pmv
Jim_Holland: #pmv "Stories are negotiable."
phanschke: @ValWorkman #pmv - goal of requirements collaboration is to make sure that PM's & Dev are on the same page.
ValWorkman: #PMV level of Decomposition. Make them independent as possible. Stories are negotiable.
DavidWLocke: @gbarrow30305 Exactly, the intent to be secure is not being secure. The doing of security task is not an intent! #pmv
gbarrow30305: user goals are often confused w/tasks #pmv
Jim_Holland: #pmv "user stories have to be valid"
DavidWLocke: @phanschke How about customers and dev/pm on same page? #pmv
DavidWLocke: @Jim_Holland Negotiable requirements is where they drive the departure between meaning and UI, poor fitness. #pmv
DavidWLocke: @Jim_Holland Negotiated stories do not remain valid. #pmv
phanschke: #PMV - SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-boxed
ValWorkman: @gbarrow30305 Isn't Goals/taskd relative from point of view, or level of decomposition we're looking at? #pmv
phanschke: @DavidWLocke #PMV - that's the other "side" of the PM collaboration - both need to be on the their same respective pages.
ValWorkman: RT @phanschke: #PMV - SMART - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-boxed
phanschke: #PMV - is the assumption that acceptance of stories implies acceptance of the epic? Does it "roll-up?
pjmasi: #PMV "As a user, i want to authenticate". This has always stuck me as odd phrasing. Who WANTS to auth? Its a by-product, not a goal.
ValWorkman: #PMV A lot of content in today's webinar. It makes sense to down view the recording multiple times.
phanschke: #pmv - is the implication here that sprints of different lengths is acceptable?
DavidWLocke: @ValWorkman And the software engineering literature is overrun with our failures to achieve intent. Why let users fail. #pmv
DavidWLocke: @phanschke There is no other side. Their are products that sell. There are apps that kill the company where they are installed. #pmv
ValWorkman: RT @pjmasi: #PMV "As a user, i want to authenticate" ... always stuck me as odd phrasing. Who WANTS to auth? Its a by-product, not a goal.
ValWorkman: @pjmasi I never got up in the morning and said, I" want to do the dishes and authenticate today! #PMV
Jim_Holland: #pmv "Your stories should be end-to-end and complete"
pjmasi: #PMV @ValWorkman Exactly right-you can use that technique to figure out if we're on the main trunk or a side (possibly unnecessary) story.
ValWorkman: #PMV Slides can be downloaded from website in PDF format http://bit.ly/GpT9k later today. I'll announce when posted.
Policani: #pmv Joining the product management view weekly webinar now #prodmgmt http://tinyurl.com/mqhfo2 (expand) via @HakanKilic [Java required]
Jim_Holland: #pmv "saying SO WHAT is a team and character building event."
DavidWLocke: @ValWorkman Security is an IT consideration, a carrier consideration. The user is a carried/content consideration. #pmv
phanschke: #pmv Who should/does test end2end user stories?
ValWorkman: @phanschke Good question, I'll ask him to address the length of sprint #pmv
Jim_Holland: #pmv "Stories are not work requests" Si
gbarrow30305: @ValWorkman @pjmasi that's a good example of how tasks can get mixed up w/user goals...it's one of the big obstacles #pmv
DavidWLocke: @phanschke Se "Software by Numbers," discusses iterations to releases. #pmv
phanschke: #pmv - well done Si!
pjmasi: #PMV I'd argue caution on 3 diff. stories that all have the same "So that".A context has been lost here.Is ret scan for ppl without thumbs?
DavidWLocke: @phanschke QA, acceptance tests, black box, beyond test-driven design whitebox testing. #pmv
ValWorkman: @pjmasi CAn you explain further #PMV
pjmasi: #PMV @ValWorkman In the ex.,3 auth stories had a common "so that" section. Without more market problem context, you cant distinguish them.
phanschke: #pmv - dropping off now ... thanks to Val and Si.
ValWorkman: @phanschke Thank you for your participation #pmv