New version: https://www.slideshare.net/LukasKlose/incremental-delivery-benefits-of-vertical-splitting

1. This presentation by agile42 is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. PLUS, I grabbed pics for this presentation from the Internet at will without paying
attention where I got them from. Sorry.
Why Split User Stories

2. Why Split Stories
I know, to make them small…
But what is the benefit

3. If you were to Build a Road from your Village “A” to
Village “B” Through a Forest...
...how would you break this task
into multiple (like 5) steps…
(Really, how would you do it...)
Village “B”
Village “A”

4. Not a good idea...
Don’t know what is there until I
survey the landscape
Might not have enough money to
complete the job
Project might get cut prematurely
Might need to be able to
demonstrate/verify benefits of
getting to village B to get more
funding

5. It’s all About
Risk
Management

6. It’s all About
Risk
ManagementPotentialRisk
Materialized
Risk

7. User: explorer
No infrastructure
Barely enough precedence to do
it once more
Validate assumptions
Get to know people in village B
Step 1 - Blaze a Trail

8. Reduce Business Risk
validate Business Assumptions
eg “Do I like the people in “village B”
Benefits of Splitting

9. Step 2 - Harden the Path
User: foot passenger
Can’t drive, but can walk
with ease
Validate more
assumptions

10. Benefits of Splitting
Reduce Delivery Risk
walk before you run
predictability (eg 4 out of 5 done (80%) vs. 1 out of 2 (50%))
smaller changes

11. Step 3 - Construct a Road
User: off road vehicles
Expand the usefulness of the path

12. Step 4 - Harden the Road
User: common vehicles
No edge cases

13. Benefits of Splitting
Reduce Technical Risk
defer commitment (can change the route with only small concessions)
validate tech assumptions

14. Step 5 - Build a Highway
User: everyone
Make solution scalable

15. Benefits of Splitting
Reduce Complexity Risk
simplify
emergent design/architecture

16. Each iteration...
Goes the full way (full quality)
Benefits from the iterations before it
Provides some value, even if very
small

17. Learning vs Producing
Learn a lot
Produce a lot
Output
Learnings
Learn & Produce

18. Learning vs Producing
Business Value
Learnings or
foundation or
whatever...

19. When a Story is Split Well
It is valuable
meets DoD, incl QA
Can produce feedback
It is shippable/complete
no need to do further work to ship
could be feature toggled
Integrated
Requires x-Functional Collaboration

20. However
It could be a fragment of a bigger feature
Shippable ≠ shipped
Eg. Jigsaw puzzle
Not useful without other pieces of the puzzle
PO might pay a penalty for splitting to gain
incremental benefit
eg 1 big story = $100k, 5 small stories = $110k
decision is up to the PO

21. Techniques
Split with the team because it’s a technical conversation, and all can learn
Use acceptance criteria
Use happy path (subset of use cases)
Use subset of users
Use assumptions
Use constraints
Use ...

22. If you really can’t figure out how to go smaller
vertically
.... build the road to the
cottage on the way (like
half way)
Travel the second half
of the way another day
Arrive at a destination
(however small the
increment) with every
story
Cottage Village “B”
Village “A”