SMART Goals
Specific: Everyone will have the same understanding as to what the goals are.
Measurable: We can objectively determine if the goals have been reached.
Achievable: The stakeholders agree as to what the goals are.
Realistic: We shall be able to achieve the goals for the project with the resources we have.
Time-Based: We will be given enough time to achieve the goals.
Detailed Enough—acceptance criteria to get started
Emergent—The Product Backlog is never “complete” it is refined over time
Estimated Relatively—sized in terms of effort
Prioritised Ordered—by value, risk, cost, dependencies, etc.
INVEST (in) User Stories
Bill Wake’s acronym in his book Extreme Programming Explored
Independent
- Shouldn’t be dependent on other stories
- Stories can be worked on in any order
- Each of them could be developed and delivered separately
NEgotiable
- There should be space of negotiation
- A story is not a contract. A story is an invitation to a conversation
- Should capture the essence of the requirement
Valuable
should clearly illustrate value to the customer.
ESTIMABLE
- A good story can be estimated
- should be understandable
- You can split the story to gain more clarity.
SMALL
- Should be completed in few person-weeks work.
- Smaller stories tend to get more accurate estimates.
testable
- A good story is testable.
- Several teams have reported that by requiring customer tests before implementing a story, the team is more productive.
- Writing the tests early helps us know whether this goal is met
A good user story:
- has a description,
- defines acceptance criteria,
- can be delivered within a single sprint,
- has all UI deliverables available?
- has all (probable) dependencies identified,
- defines performance criteria,
- defines tracking criteria, and
- is estimated by the team.
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