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Week 5 [Fri, Feb 9th] - Tutorial

1 Choose tP user stories for v1.0

  • Show your list of tP user stories to the tutor (for progress tracking).
  • Choose user stories for v1.0 as explained below.

Admin tP → week 5 → Choose user stories for v1.0

Intuitively, you might think the right thing to do is to decide what features will be in v2.1 and then plan the intermediate versions based on that. But that's not what we are going to do.

Why? Given the difficulty of reliably estimating the effort each feature will need, any such long-range plan is likely to be inaccurate.

Instead, what we will do is to assume the current iteration is the last iteration, plan that iteration to deliver the product (based on available time), and try to follow that plan as best as we can. After the iteration is over, we plan the next iteration as if it's the last iteration. But that time, you can factor in the experience from the previous iteration to do a better job of planning.

How is that better?

  • Shorter-term plans have a better chance of being accurate and doable.
  • You get multiple clean shots at project planning. Each try can learn from the previous tries. Hence, more learning.
  • As each iteration produces a working product, you always have a working product, which practically eliminates the risk failing to deliver a working product by the final deadline.

The goal of this activity is to come up with the smallest possible product that is still usable so that it can be implemented as v1.0, to be delivered at the end of the first project iteration i.e., NOT what you can or want to do in v1.0, but what you must do in v1.0. We try to make it small because you will have only two weeks to implement v1.0 and coding as a team is a lot harder than writing code alone.

Do not discuss features, UI, command format, or implementation details yet. That would be like putting the cart before the horse. At this stage we are simply trying to choose which user needs to fulfill first.

  • If the product can be of some use without a given user story, that user story should be left out of v1.0, even if the omission makes the product hard to use, as long as the product is not impossible to use e.g., in most cases a product can be used without an 'edit item' feature because the user can always delete an item and add a new item instead of editing an existing an item.
  • Don't worry about v2.0. You can design v2.0 after v1.0 done.
  • Don't worry about v1.0 being 'too small'. You can always add more features to v1.0 if you finish it ahead of schedule.
    You can also select an additional set of user stories that are nice-to-have in v1.2, to be done but only if there's time left.
  • If possible, narrow the scope of v1.0 further e.g., narrower target user, a smaller value proposition.

Suggested workflow:

  • First stage:
    • Divide the user stories among team members.
    • Each member will go through their user stories to discard (e.g., cross out, or move to a different location, but not delete) which are definitely not needed for v1.0.
  • Second stage:
    • All members discuss the remaining user stories (i.e., the ones not discarded in the first stage), and try to trim the list further.

FAQs

Q: What if the chosen user stories for v1.0 is not enough to do a meaningful work division among team members?
A: In that case, at a later stage, you can add more user stories until there is enough for a meaningful work distribution. But at this point focus on selecting the smallest sub-set of must_have user stories only.

Q: Should we start implementing v1.0 now?
A: Not at all. That is scheduled several weeks later. For now, just figure out the minimal feature set required for the product. We'll let you know when it is time to start working on v1.0.

2 time permitting Create a feature list for v1.0

  • If there is time left, do the following tP task that is scheduled for the following week.

Admin tP → week 6 → Conceptualize v1.0

  • Based on your user stories selected previously, conceptualize the product in terms of how it will look like at v1.0 in the form of a feature list.
    Note down the feature list in your online project notes document.

FAQ: How many features should we put in v1.0?
A: Aim for the smallest set of features the product cannot do without. Even a most basic version of those features is enough. After completing that feature set, you can add more if there is time left.