Exercise: Estimating User Stories

This exercise demonstrates task size estimation using ‘story points.’ A story point is a unit-less measure of size and complexity for a story. More important than the estimate is the discussion the group has about the story. This activity helps a group understand what tasks and proposed solutions might mean/be before attempting to implement them.

Objectives
Understand the ‘planning poker’ technique for task/story estimation for high tech development project and to obtain useful estimates for (iteration) planning.

Prerequisites
Familiarisation with ‘user stories’ and the ‘story card’ method for capturing goal driven requirements.
Planning poker cards or index cards with range of numbers (?, 0, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100, & coffee)

Instructions
Budget up to 45 minutes to run the whole exercise (for a class size of ~50). Arrange class into groups from 4 to 7 people.

1. Allocate 1” for everyone to read through the ‘local’ rules for planning poker below.
2. Discuss planning poker rules to clarify understanding.
3. Allocate 2” for everyone to read the scenario carefully (don’t make personal estimates yet).
4. 25” for planning poker rounds.
5. 15” for debriefing discussion.

(Local) Rules for Planning Poker; adapted from (Cohn, 2006)

1. The dealer picks up the next story and asks: “Ok, how many story points will this story take?”
2. Team members think about the story and come up their own estimates. Nobody speaks the estimate just yet.
3. Members place a card from their decks face down on the table, with a value equal to or close to their estimate.
4. When everyone’s card is on the table turn the cards over at the same time.
5. Each person explains what he or she thought the story required, maximum of 3 minutes discussion.
6. Taking account of new information the cards are played again (and perhaps again) until rough convergence is achieved or one developer’s proposal and estimate is agreed upon.

Discussion points

• Did you identify duplicate entries?
• How did you handle user stories that did not follow the “As a… I want to… so that…” pattern?
• Were some user stories too ambiguous to estimate?
• How did the teams make sense of the stated requirement?
• Did the teams seek clarification from the product owner?
• How were divergent estimates treated?
• Describe your ‘feelings’ about the process? Fair, political, honest, dominated, contentious, accurate, shared, personalised, ideas, support, attack…
• How did the team arrive at a shared interpretation of the estimated value?
• Did you attach a concrete meaning for the estimate figure? Dimensionless, people, complex-standalone, similar to or like something else, hours, days, small-medium-large, easy-difficult…

Online version

The online version we'll use is courtesy of PlanningPoker.com's basic free account access.

Register at https://play.planningpoker.com/plans and select the free account option

Only one member of the group needs an account. One member of the group sets up the planning poker session. Those invited should not need to register to play.

Enter the following stories:

First a simple test run...

Organise a class night out under Covid

https://play.planningpoker.com/play/game/xItYl4XolMNg93wpjLy39cHOHssGPvYn

Title: Organise a class night out under Covid

Description: As a member of the class I want organise a social event for the whole class that is fun and interactive and accessible so that we (as a class) get to know each other better.

Acceptance Criteria:

It must...

Involve the whole class

Conform with social distance norms

Be fun

Be accessible 

Be interactive

You provide a Wedding Planning Service

The couple wants you to plan and design a whole wedding experience.

How long will it take you to put together a proposal for the following...

• A wedding experience starting on Christmas Eve.
• Options for the perfect venue - a Castle in the West of Ireland.
• With accommodation and board for approximately 200 guests (around 150 arriving from abroad).
• Arranged airport to venue transportation.
• Providing three separate marriage celebration ceremonies running over three consecutive days, each in a different style: European, Asian, South American.
• Concluding with a morning reception on the last day.
• Offering high impact evening entertainment options.
• Provide Media Service and Management (socials, streaming, video, photography).
• Full Security offering.
• Provide optional sports and tourist activities over 3.5 days.
• Arranged airport transportation for departing guests.

Bridge Design Lesson Plans

• A. Five classic bridge designs 
• B. Bridge failures!
• C. Test stuff to destruction!

Title: A. Five classic bridge designs 

Description: As a teacher I want student groups to construct models of the 5 classic bridge designs so that they have practical hands-on experience of design construction challenges.

Acceptance Criteria:

Proposed lessons to be delivered in blocks of 45 mins for a sample group of students (teenagers).

Student group completes lesson for bridge type 1  in 45 mins

Repeat lessons for bridge types 2-5 each taking 45 mins.

Photographic outputs from each lesson.

Title: B. Bridge failures!

Description: As a teacher I want students to test the weight bearing capacity of different bridge designs so that my students will appreciate the applications for different bridge types.

Acceptance Criteria: 

A lesson plan for a 45 min class

Students to generate photographic evidence and scientific data relevant to bridge performance.

Title: C. Test stuff to destruction!

Description: 

As a teacher I want students to evaluate different building materials and relate them to physical design elements  so that my students will appreciate the suitability of material choices for different bridge elements.

Acceptance Criteria: 

Each proposed lesson to be delivered in blocks of 45 mins

Students to create a table of physical characteristics

Students to create a table of load characteristics

Students to create analytical maps of physical demands for bridge design elements

References
Cohn, M. (2006) Agile Estimating and Planning, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Pearson Education.

Exercise: Writing an Academic Article

Use technology to manage a bibliography, referencing and in-text citations.
This exercise introduces MS Word style sheets and References...

The following illustrative exercise uses the ECIS template on Google Drive (link).

1. Copy the template from the shared folder to your own computer.
2. Rename your file using the following pattern "Surname_MyResearchProject_YYYY.doc".
For example my own paper is going to be "HigginsEtAl_WorkingInVirtualLight_YYYY.doc". I have used the author convention "SurnameEtAl" as there are three or more authors.
3. From the MS Ribbon "Home" open the Styles Panel. The "Current style" field show the current text style wherever the cursor is in your Word file. Alternately navigate to top menu "Format>Style" for similar.

The current style at cursor location

4. Select section 1 "First level heading" and rename it "Introduction"

5. Paste and match formatting using following unformatted text as new paragraphs for section 1

Critical management studies appreciate that products and services, produced with technologies, by organisations, and the involvement of users, rely upon "actors having formal and symbolic resources for the exercise of... systematic forms of control over organisational participants, and indirectly over other groups and non-human objects"\citep{AlvDee2000aa}. The techniques and skill of management for producing digital goods and services (through software, hardware and systems) at its best aims to resolve this through the delicate, democratic balancing of power, control of resources, shaping of work culture, and leadership \citep{Kid1981aa}. The following brief introduction to the literature positions this study within the broad field of management information systems and seeks to inform further creative, design, and development initiatives.This study looks at...

6. Confirm that the paragraph current style is "Basic text"

7. Select the following text and change its style to "Subtle Emphasis". You many need to filter the style list selection at the bottom of the styles window.

“actors having formal and symbolic resources for the exercise of... systematic forms of control over organisational participants, and indirectly over other groups and non-human objects”

8. With the MS Ribbon "References" active...

Select the LaTeX citation command \citep{AlvDee2000aa} and replace it with the MS Word equivalent citation, i.e. from the References Ribbon select "Insert Citation". You may need to create a new entry in the Word file's Citations collection

Create a new citation source record

Enter a new source record as follows (n.b. add ", p. 7" to be thorough)

MS Word's new citation source editor

9. Similarly replace the LaTex/Bibtex command for Kidder "\citep{Kid1981aa}" with

Adding Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine to the citation list in your MS Word document

10. Now regenerate the bibliography at the end of the draft paper by navigating to the "References" section, and selecting "Bibliography" to insert a new bibliography. You'll end up deleting the previous copy. You'll also need to reapply the style "Reference" to this text

n.b. the bibliography style-type (Harvard - Anglia) and the insert "Bibliography" command

For further background refer to the notes on the term paper at:
https://managingdesignanddevelopment.blogspot.com/2015/04/term-paper-and-presentation-guidelines.html

Writing styles: The term paper is written in an academic style, presenting your background reading, method, research, analysis, theorising and critiquing aspects, for example of the history, situation, processes etc of a particular sourcing context. Consider identifying an exemplary paper that you aspire to emulate or to compare your own paper with.

You must use the specified scientific conference template for the term-paper. Choose between either the LaTeX or Word template from the ECIS 2015 conference. Copies are available on (Google Drive link). By using and sticking with the ECIS template your paper will automatically conform with the scientific format guidelines for that conference.

Self-assessment for this exercise:

1. Did you upload the file (e.g. word file)?
2. Did you use the correct template?
3. Did you add a new source record into the document?
4. Did you insert a citation into the text of the document?
5. Did you regenerate the bibliography/references at the end of the document? 

Cultural probe method exercise

"Some complex design challenges involve people of different cultures, languages, and societies where traditional research approaches won't help us adequately emphathize with their experiences." (Battarbee et al., 2012: p. 7)

The cultural probe method encourages participants to make a visual journal and reflection of their encounter with a culture context/experience. Probes gathered and compared across many participants offer the possibility to provide both generalisable information and deep insights (potential for broad and/or deep learning).

The following exercise provides a 'flavour' of the method:

Suggested protocol to conduct a cultural probe as follows:

1. Take a trip to a local shop, market, or a specialist food store.
2. Purchase 1 inexpensive food item you never tried before (1x photo).
3. Research how to prepare it to eat or use it as an ingredient.
4. Follow the recipe to prepare the food and test it.
5. Write a paragraph-note summarising the exercise.
6. Findings: Captured in (at least) a 1+ photo and (at least) a 1+ paragraph-note.

Reflections from students:

"The homework’s cultural probe was an assignment that made me reflect on the concept of design empathy and the importance of investing yourself into new contexts and open your senses. The bad designs homework has for example made me look at the world in a different ways. I now notice things from a design perspective that I otherwise wouldn’t have noticed before."

"The cultural probe exercise was not a simple cooking exercise, for a first-time chef like me; it was an interest-oriented, research-based, process designed operation with excellent results."

Exercise: (b) Design a text-free search interface

Some hand-drawn ideas and doodles...

The goal of this exercise is to familiarise students with interface design approaches and tools. First by using pencil/pen and paper. Second by using the Balsamiq wire-frame tool to mock-up your design.

Objective
To practice creating design artifacts to display and test technology use/interaction ideas.

Material
A4 paper, pencil or pen.

Create an account on Balsamiq Cloud (no payment details are needed).

Log In to Balsamiq Cloud
https://balsamiq.cloud/#login

Instructions
1. Use paper/pencil sketch a mockup of a new kind of Internet ‘search page’ that doesn’t use text (at all)! (allocate 10")
2. Collect the sketches and display them to the class; allow the group to provide a brief commentary. (allocate 10" to display all mockups).
3. Next, use Balsamiq to create a digital version of the design. The new design may vary from the paper/pencil sketch. (allocate 15")
4. Discuss the following reflection points. (allocate 10")

Reflection
How did the quality and level of design discussion differ from the earlier exercise?
Comment on how you conceptualised or simulated the 'user' of your design.

References
Snyder, C. (2003) Paper Prototyping: The fast and easy way to design and refine user interfaces, San Francisco, CA, Morgan Kaufmann, Elsevier Science.

(other tools include: wireframe.cc, app.moqups.com, invisionapp.com, sketchapp.com, Axure, Justinmind, Marvelapp/POPapp and iRise)

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Previous Student Examples

Dilyan's example: Fast booking mock up: Fast booking mock up

Whole class examples in collage:

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit

Poppendieck & Poppendieck (2003) borrow the notion of 'lean' from Taiishi Ohno's Toyota Production System approach and adapt the system to software development. The guiding principle behind the idea of 'lean' software development is to eliminate waste in the form of inventory stock and piece work dwell times from any and every aspect of work possible. In borrowing lean principles and terminology, which were developed for physical goods manufacturing, how does 'lean' apply to software's 'perfect' manufacturing environment (perfection in this sense meaning to software's potential for its manufacture of exact copies of an original via digital copying)?

Waste is present in the guise of unnecessary formality and management overhead.

Extensive documentary efforts lead to waste, excessive communication (meetings) lead to waste, excessive processes, interruption, delays and defects all lead to waste in the software process.

Using the 'lean' model requires that we apply tests to work activities to establish their validity.
"A good test of the value of paperwork is to see if there is someone waiting for what is being produced." (Poppendieck & Poppendieck, 2003:5) They note that the most wasteful work around documentation efforts surrounds attempts to produce documents that "contain all of the information that the next person in line needs to know." (p7) Explicit documentation requires infeasible completeness; rely instead on tacit knowledge and direct communication between producer and receiver. The cases given in this book emphasise processes of communication, on incremental delivery, communication with customers, taking care to produce and give what is really needed, delivering simplest possible meaningful feature sets as quickly as possible.

All software is partially done, or rather is always potentially subject to change. Because software is amenable to change and its requirements are difficult to establish unambiguously software development processes are designed to reduce risk. Managing large software developments is an inherently risky process (Royce, 1970). In industry two polar extremes are taken by attempts to address risk: to establish perfect clarity prior to commencing the work, or to get feedback by producing something as early as possible (to give producer and customer a concrete artefact to explore, clarify, negotiate and make sense of. Lean takes the second position as its goal. P&P paraphrase Royce (1970) by stating that "every step in the waterfall process except analysis and coding is waste." (Poppendieck & Poppendieck, 2003:4). However Royce's own position was that "there are two essential steps common to all computer program developments, regardless of size or complexity. There is first an analysis step, followed second by a coding step... This sort of very simple implementation concept is in fact all that is required if the effort is sufficiently small and if the final product is to be operated by those who built it" (Royce, 1970: 328).

Value stream mapping is one way of describing the 'as-is' situation and preparing to change current processes and the balance of effort invested in development. Lean thinking applies the view that early feedback reduces waiting, the goal for which is to free the developer somewhat and the customer too, to give each the opportunity to clarify meaning and learn from each other what is desired, desirable, degrees of freedom and constraints. The implication of providing and giving early feedback is to recast the idea of who controls and manages development, instead control or management figure through involvement in production. Development may at this extreme be better understood as co-production. How then is this heightened communication between customer and developer attained?

References

• Poppendieck, M. & Poppendieck, T. (2003) Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA, Addison Wesley.
• Royce, W. W. (1970) Managing Development of Large Scale Software Systems. IEEE WESCON. TRW. http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/jhuang/is553/Royce.pdf

Notes:

SA 1: Is the use of a manufacturing metaphor in what is clearly a field of design and development work strictly applicable?

SA Note 1: The two fields of design and manufacturing are both conceptually and physically different. Certainly software duplication does not require the sorts of controls and efficiencies sought for in scaling production of physical goods manufacture. For digital media the finished product is absolutely the end of the story. More importantly, in the case of software a shift of focus from reproducing a digital good towards the work of designing the good is absolutely necessary. Software development's focus must be upon everything that precedes the production of the first copy of the end product. The manufacturing metaphor has limits when applied to software development however the principles of 'lean' are still relevant and applicable to software's activities: design, analysis, coding etc.

Good UI delivers visibility, feedback, control.

Golden Krishna's thoughts on 'NO UI' prompted a response by his colleague at Cooper Design, Stefan Klocek, who argued back that good UI can be, should be, is desirable. Design should not be about removing UI, but that good UI is instead about those three big things that Don Norman focuses on: visibility, feedback, control. Klocek's article is available from The Cooper Journal (link)

The best interface is no interface

Who doesn’t want Twitter inside the refrigerator? 

I'm sorry, Twitter in my refrigerator, why?

“Upgrade your life” with a better refrigerator door from Samsung and check Tweets when getting some water from the fridge?? 

 How do you make a better hotel lobby? Slap an interface in it. A giant touchscreen with news and weather is exactly what’s missing from my hotel stay?!?? Golden Krishna argues that our love for the digital interface has gotten out-of-control. With more than a touch of irony...

"Creative minds in technology should focus on solving problems. Not just make interfaces."

From The Cooper Journal (link)