Chapter 12. Decomposing Stories and Tasks

Writing stories and tasks of the right size can mean the difference between succeeding with Scrum and failing miserably. It’s that important. What’s worse is that the symptoms of wrong-sized work elements (not finishing, poor estimation, painful daily scrums) don’t at first seem related to story and task size at all.

During one of my first projects, we found we were having problems completing our work by the end of the sprint. Our first inclination was to blame the sprint length—we assumed a longer sprint would solve our problems. Through a serendipitous encounter, we discovered that it was actually our tasks and stories, rather than our sprints, that needed to be resized.

The Story

Ours was a team that ...

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