¶ Let’s Build A Castle (A Software Development Breakdown)
Developing software demands a clear vision, effective communication, and collaboration. To achieve this, development teams employ user stories and acceptance criteria, ensuring that each step contributes to delivering a valuable product to end-users. However, user stories represent just one aspect of the software development journey; they serve as a strong foundation. Building software is akin to constructing a castle, where each component plays a crucial role in the final outcome. Join us below as we delve into each of these components and demonstrate how DevBricks challenges these norms.
¶ The different levels of your build!
Epics - The Dream for Your Castle!
Epics serve as the grand vision for constructing your castle, akin to the overarching purpose guiding every building step. They establish the direction and purpose, mirroring how the goal of castle construction should steer your builders from start to finish.
Features - The rooms of your castle
Features can be likened to the various components that constitute a castle, such as the throne room, library, and army. Each feature contributes essential elements to the final product, akin to how without these components, a castle would not be complete. Completing each feature is necessary to ensure the software is fully functional and ready for use
User Stories - The bricks that make the rooms
User stories function as detailed roadmaps for executing various features. Much like builders meticulously install a bell in a bell tower, user stories delineate the precise tasks and actions necessary to develop and seamlessly integrate each feature into the software. They offer clarity and direction, ensuring that every facet of the product is meticulously implemented and aligns with the desired standards. Yet, should these user stories lack coherence or contain inaccuracies, the entire task risks unravelling swiftly.
Why are User Stories Important?
Well-written user stories establish a strong foundation for practical software development by avoiding unnecessary complexities and outlining essential task details. On the opposite side, weak written user stories can lead to miscommunications or worse the wrong items being built.
- User stories focus on user needs, keeping development aligned with user goals. They facilitate clear communication between stakeholders, ensuring shared understanding.
- User stories are flexible and adaptable, easily modified as needed during development.
- They encourage collaboration among team members to find innovative solutions.
- User stories include measurable outcomes, preventing misunderstandings about completeness.
- Well-suited for agile development, user stories enable continuous delivery and quick feedback loops.
- When writing a user story, it’s important to consider who the user is, what are they trying to achieve and why.
The typical format is:
As a < user - Stakeholder, persona, role >
I want < action >
So that < value or justification >
What is the Acceptance Criteria?
Acceptance criteria are like a project's GPS, guiding everyone to the destination of success.
Each user story must have Acceptance Criteria, and it is not limited to a single set of Acceptance Criteria.
Acceptance criteria is a means of looking at the problem at hand from a customer’s standpoint. It should be written in the context of a real user’s experience. It provides benchmarks for assessing whether the implementation is on target and that actual benefit to the user is being delivered.
Acceptance criteria should be testable since these requirements help formulate the definition of done for your engineers. The results of these tests must leave no room for interpretation and should reveal straightforward yes/no or pass/fail results. Everyone must understand your acceptance criteria. They need to be clear and concise to ensure there is no ambiguity.
When writing Acceptance Criteria with the User in mind, the format below is recommended.
Given <a context>
When <an event happens>
Then <there is an outcome>
How DevBricks Transforms this Journey
If anything what you should have taken from the above is how important user stories are to development. Ensuring that every user story crafted by your team is of the highest quality possible, DevBricks' User Story Health Metric is adept at reviewing and offering recommendations to enhance your team's work. But how does DevBricks evaluate your user stories? What criteria does it employ? DevBricks conducts Health Checks to ensure that your user stories adhere to the INVEST principles:
- Independent: Each user story should stand alone and not rely on other stories for completion.
- Negotiable: User stories should be open to discussion and negotiation between the development team.
- Valuable: Every user story should deliver tangible value to the end-user or customer.
- Estimable: User stories should be estimable in terms of effort or complexity by the development team.
- Small: User stories should be scoped small enough to be completed within a single iteration or sprint.
- Testable: Each user story should come with clear acceptance criteria that enable testing to ascertain completion.
DevBricks then provide you with recommendations that can be applied to enhance the user story and align with the INVEST criteria, this results in:
Stronger and More Accurate User Stories
Just as every room in your castle demands sturdy walls, DevBricks employs the INVEST method in conjunction with its User Story Health Metric tool to guarantee that each user story is robust and accurate before the commencement of development. This approach mitigates miscommunication issues and ensures that features are constructed in alignment with your business requirements.
Get Features Done Faster with Automation!
Once the user stories have been refined, DevBricks goes the extra mile by automating the necessary code and dependent testing to jumpstart each user story! This leads to quicker production of "Bricks," enabling your team to construct each "Room" in record time!
Get your Castle Built!
By addressing issues at the user story level and then automating code development, DevBricks ensures that your castle can be built faster, with the assurance that it's constructed upon sturdy bricks. This results in a kingdom brimming with joy!