The Definition of Ready
Garbage in, garbage out. If your user story delivery suffers from churn, rework and defects, it might be the result of stories that weren’t really ready for implementation to start.The Definition of Ready can help. Kanban practice #1 guides us to first visualize the ‘Ready’ step in your workflow, which may look something like this:
Backlog —> Ready —> Developing —> Testing —> Done.
Most backlog management tools such as Jira have the ability to customize your workflow to add the ‘Ready’ step.
Kanban practice #3 is to Make Process Policies Explicit. Each workflow step should have explicit entry criteria, which means we to define the criteria for an item to be Ready. Below are some items to consider for your Ready criteria.
Criteria for the process of getting to ‘Ready’:
Who (or which roles) must collaborate in refining a user story? The whole team, or a subset? E.g. Product owner, 1 UX person, 1 developer, and 1 tester; confirm that the story is valuable, usable, and feasible.
How will we collaborate on story refinement? (I encourage a live discussion with a white board - physical or virtual)
Dependencies & risks are identified and mitigated
Story Content criteria, or Acceptance Criteria guidelines:
The business value of the story is understood and summarized in the written story
Maximum allowable story size: if it’s larger than this threshold, split the story. If you’re using #NoEstimates, then simply confirm that it’s a normal-sized item.
A mock-up or visual is provided, if applicable. (Is a lo-fi wire frame good enough to start?)
An example and/or diagram is provided to explain any complicated rules or logic (e.g. a complex financial calculation)
Any non-functional requirements are identified, e.g. security, reliability, performance
Error handling, corner cases and edge cases are identified
It’s important for everyone to acknowledge that we can never eliminate ALL uncertainty. We are striving to have ‘good enough’ clarity so the team can start the work without running into major roadblocks.
Below are some examples of criteria that may be overly restrictive and rigid; you might avoid these.
Pixel-perfect UI design is completed
All technical tasks are identified and assigned to individual people
Low-level detailed technical solution is complete
Formal ‘sign-off’ process [especially one that creates a delay or bottleneck]
In summary, you should be able prevent defects and churn by starting with ‘Ready’ user stories.
Image courtesy of Flickr user Sangudo under a Creative Commons license.