Ready, Really Ready, and Really Really Ready Stories

Product owners create stories they believe are ready for development. Developers accept and then estimate stories that are not really ready to be started. This disconnect between being “ready” and “really ready” results in miscommunication and frustration. For example, story development can take much longer than original estimates because of the details and “sad paths” that were not expressed in the story. Ken Pugh describes how to turn vague acceptance criteria into specific acceptance tests. He explains how levels of detail in acceptance tests can help to more closely estimate the effort required by stories and shows how acceptance tests determine when stories are complete. With Ken, you’ll go through creating a “really really ready” story and examine when it should be created and who should participate. Ken concludes by comparing how ready stories may be considered done, but “really really ready” stories will be “really really done.”