Do you ever struggle with knowing if you should split stories? Or wondering if you have a valuable minimum? Jeffrey Frederick and Squirrel offered a signal for a too-small minimum in their podcast, MVP Cubed. That signal was when people became bored with the work.
Let me add some additional tests:
- When the team can't decide on one specific user. (“As a user” is not sufficient. Which user will be delighted with this story or MVP?)
- No one wants to demo this work, because everyone thinks the demo will wander all over the place.
- Worse, no one wants to demo, because they can't see the value for any user. (This might be a corollary to the boredom problem, but I think it's different.)
(I bet you can think of more tests. If you do, please comment so I can learn from you.)
Use the Demo to Guide Sizing
If you start from the demo and think about a “direct” demo to show which user will be delighted with the work, you might have a small-enough story. It might still be “too” big if you can't finish it in one or two days, but here's how you can consider changing how you work:
- Limit the team's WIP with collaboration. Pair, Swarm, or Mob on all the stories.
- Focus on the flow of work through the team, flow efficiency thinking. That will also likely limit the team's WIP, and support the team in finishing fewer things faster.
- Start with the demo in mind.
I offered ways to think about minimums in Consider Product Options with Minimum Outcomes. I also write a lot about How Little Thinking.
Too often, we think about “everything” we can do instead of how little. And, we have the challenge of no overarching goal if we have a problem that's only part of a necessary solution. This is a case of how you can right-size your stories.