Team Writing Own Sprint Stories: New Team Skill
I started an initiative in 2021 was to have the team start writing their own sprint stories - the series starts here
When I developed the team into a strong execution engine, getting them to write the stories AND executing was not a smooth transition.
I had a story template to work off from. Why couldn’t they just use it too?
Just like developing a skill for test driven-development, the skill doesn’t appear instantly. Muscles developed before where one must unlearn to succeed as a test driven developer.
This is the same problem here - the team needs to develop a new skill:
- Understanding the problem
- Break down the problem for the current system
- Write the story
Normally, I would spend time with the team and train them directly.
In this situation, I let the team work out this problem themselves with the help of the team’s lead developer for two reasons:
- This skill is essential for all team members to have.
- We had breathing room as the team started a Greenfield project.
If #2 was not there, I may be more hands on to accelerate this process.
Then there is the stakeholder pushback