2021 Highlights: Team Writing Own Sprint Stories

I started an initiative in 2021 was to have the team start writing their own sprint stories.

Aren’t you basically “not doing your job as an engineering leader”?

Initially, I thought that writing sprint stories for my team is the job.

Over time, I found writing sprint stories for the team to do is probably the worst thing I can do as an engineer leader.

1. The team knows the system better than I do - they are working on the system day in and day out. They know all the details. They are making decisions to solve problems and bringing the system to life.
2. When I think an approach to a story is easy and convince the team of the approach, when it is not easy, who’s fault is it? (Hint, it’s not the teams!)
3. When there’s a “gap” in my reality of the system and the actual reality of the system - what’s the fastest way to fill in the gap? (Hint, it’s not me writing a story!)

I encountered all of the above and got lucky on my brushes with #2 & #3. #1 is true - the team knows the system better than me.

This is the motivation for the change - have the team write their own sprint stories.