I have been working with a number of teams recently that are behind. It always seems that people believe that when they are in trouble with respect to time that Agile is the answer.
Strange.
The discussion does however follow a pattern. It becomes almost automatic to go down this path.
Q: So do you have a list of stories or tasks that are being worked on in this iteration?
A: Yes, here it is.
Q: Great, tell me what is the success criteria for this one ( I randomly select one)
A: Well it isn’t written down but I feel I knew what it was when I wrote that task in the list.
Q: Do you think the developer working on it has the same understanding you had in your mind?
A: Well they should, but we don’t talk about it, we are too busy.
Q: How will you know when they are done?
A: She will come to me and ask to close the work request.
Q: And how long from now is that?
A: Don’t know
Does anyone else spot the issues here?
We seem to be working on a list of tasks that have no acceptance criteria written down or even agreed. There is not enough discussion about the tasks and we simply sit back and wait.
Wrong wrong wrong.
Spend time to agree and write down what done means at all levels. In user stories this is the acceptance criteria. In tasks it depends on the task type, but if you cannot write it down, then it will never be finished.
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