1. Effective Story Telling Techniques
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2. Who is cPrime?
Engaged for Your Project Management Success
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3. Today’s Presenter
 Jeff Howey, Agile Coach
o Trains & coaches teams and
companies in Scrum and other
Agile processes
• 10 years practicing Agile
• Certified Scrum Professional
& Scrum Master
• 5 years mentoring, coaching
& training
• 20 years in Software
Development: QA,
Development, Business
Analysis, Project
Management and Business
Architecture
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4. A Few Logistics
 Large-group webinar, limited interaction and primarily one-way
o Other online training and public or private training options are
more personalized and interactive if you want those
 Questions can be addressed to me (Presenter) or our Moderator
o Will try to address themes and patterns of questions where they
fit in the material
o May use examples or questions posed by individuals
o Other feedback collected and will be used for:
• Comments and thoughts available with the recorded session
• Future Blog Posts or Updates
• Input for future iterations of this presentation
 Raise your hand or address the Moderator if you need technical
help or have difficulty and we will try to help
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5. After the webinar…
 We will send information to collect the PDU you will earn from this
webinar
 We will also send a links to the recorded webinar and presentation
slides once they are posted online
 For more information, visit www.cprime.com
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6. Why are we here?
 Understand and Learn CONCEPTS and TECHNIQUES
 Collectively, raise the bar on Requirements Elicitation and Product
Development activities across the Agile environment
 Build competency around Just In Time requirements management
 Demonstrate the importance of including “those who do the work”
in defining what the work is
 Manifest the Agile Principles through concepts and techniques that
can be practiced in any environment, regardless of organizational
structure, size, rules, etc.
o Welcome Change
o Collaborate, work together
o Continuous focus on what’s important
o Achieving simple, but elegant solutions
 Make it your own
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7. What is Story Telling?
 Method of developing  Method of planning
requirements o Prioritization
o Product Innovation o Release Planning
o Collaboration with o Architecture and approach
Customers o Estimation
o Collaboration with o Task Breakdown
Technology
o Consistent User Experience
 Progressive Elaboration
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8. Why is Story Telling Important?
 Traditional approach to requirements elicitation is wasteful
 Agile Story Telling allows for early focus on high value features
 Progressive Elaboration creates an intentional approach to refining
details – from both the customer and technology perspectives
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9. Who Leads Story Telling?
 Generically  Scrum:
o Product Managers o Product Owner & Team
o Business/Systems Analysts
o Developers  Kanban:
o Architects o Requestors & Doers of Work
o Testers
o Project Managers Make it your own
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10. Who Participates in Story Telling?
 Customers
Product Innovation  Product Managers
 Project Managers
Get Ideas Strategize  Architects
 Business & Systems Analysts
 Developers
 Quality Analysts
Prioritization & Planning  Operations (Sys Admins, DBAs)
 Help Desk, Prod Support Team
Value Timing
What is best given your
o Product?
Implementation o Culture?
o Environment?
What How
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11. The Setup for Our Example
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12. We Are
 With Visions of
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13. Customers & their needs
Our Customers
 Sarah
o Frequent traveler for work
and pleasure
o Checking, Savings, Visa,
Mortgage
 Julie
o College student
o Checking, Savings
 Lisa (owner of TacoTote)
Their Need = Our Goal
o Business Owner, Traveler
o Business & Personal As a Customer of Agile Academy
Checking, Savings, Money Credit Union, I want to access my
Market, Visa account balance on my mobile device.
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14. Generating Ideas and Standards
 Customers
 Product Managers
 Project Managers
 Architects
 Business & Systems Analysts
 Developers
 Quality Analysts
 Operations (Sys Admins, DBAs)
 Help Desk, Prod Support Team
What is best given your
o Product?
o Culture?
o Environment?
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15. Balancing Priorities and Knowing Impacts
 Customers
We are losing
 Product Managers
customers who
want mobile!
 Project Managers
 Architects
 Business & Systems Analysts
 Developers
 Quality Analysts
 Operations (Sys Admins, DBAs)
 Help Desk, Prod Support Team
What is best given your
o Product?
Will this impact our Q3 o Culture?
merger with Waterfall
Bank from a resource or o Environment?
system perspective??
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16. Getting it Done!
Goals:  Customers
1. Integrate with Waterfall Bank
2. Build iOS version of Mobile App  Product Managers
3. Learn or acquire team members  Project Managers
can develop Android App
4. Build Android version of Mobile App  Architects
 Business & Systems Analysts
 Developers
 Quality Analysts
 Operations (Sys Admins, DBAs)
 Help Desk, Prod Support Team
What is best given your
o Product?
o Culture?
GREAT!
o Environment?
We know
priority!
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17. The Goals of Story Telling
To whom do you tell your Story and why?
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18. Story Telling Starts with the Customer
 Know the Customer’s
communication channels
o Formal
o Informal
 Understand the Product Vision
o Does a Customer’s request
fit?
 Let the Customer know you’ve
heard them
 Continue to refine the details
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19. Refined User Stories
 After discussion with customers, reading feedback from their
suggestion box and online comment forms, our Product Owner
learns:
o Sarah wants to see her account balances using a mobile app on
her Android Smartphone.
o Julie at least wants to see the available balance of her checking
account in a text message on her iPhone. She would love an app
that she can use to login and see more detail about her balance
and transactions.
o TacoTote wants to see the balance of their business checking
account using their 4G mobile-enabled Android tablet.
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20. Story Telling Builds Momentum
 Collaborate to review Customer  Through discussion with other
feedback, wants & needs with other Product and Project Managers, our
Product Management team Product Owner learns:
members o The system integration with
 Innovate to satisfy new needs Waterfall Bank is the highest
o Or old needs in new ways company priority to avoid
 Identify competing or conflicting overhead costs
requests & priorities o Sales has been asking for
o Project/Portfolio alignment “mobile app” support for
awhile (an eternity, if you ask
 Identify dependencies & them) to avoid losing
synergies customers to larger or more
o Reusable skills & tools “modern” banks
o Needs for training or o A Project Manager on the
technology team has experience with
deploying mobile apps
elsewhere
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21. Story Telling Defines Solution Options
 Meet with Architects, Technical  Here’s what the Product Owner
Leaders and key Technical Staff to learns in early Story Telling
understand the abilities (and discussions with the Architect and
limitations) of existing some technical team members:
infrastructure o Our team can do some basic
 Refine details (and often, iOS development but does
priorities) based on what is valuable not yet have all the
and what is feasible tools/skills for Android App
 Get ahead of long lead-times development
needed to acquire new skills, tools o Our existing web-services
or infrastructure could be used for mobile
 Understand where existing access to Account Data with
capabilities can get key features to minimal rework
market quickly o We have a basic web-enabled
application that works in
Chrome, Safari, Firefox and
Safari
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22. Story Telling defines “What” to Build
 Product Owners literally tell
the Story, answer questions
and identify where the
requirements need to be
clarified
o Avoids huge up-front
effort detailing every
specification, field, value
and data transformation
that developers may
already know
o Avoids giving a 2-line
requirement and being
disappointed in the
review (or worse, in
production)
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23. For Example
“Julie at least wants to see the
available balance of her checking Sounds like 2
account in a text message on her Stories to me
What do you
iPhone. She would love an app that mean “at
she can use to login and see more least?”
detail about her balance and
transactions” Actually, I think
that there is a 3rd How far back
story to see in time should
transaction history we show the
 Which is refined to: transactions?
1. Julie wants the available balance
of her checking account in a text Is it the “Posted”
balance or the
message. “Available” Hey, we can
balance reuse our
2. Julie wants to see her available Login scripts
balances for all accounts in her with this
iPhone app.
3. Julie wants to see the last 30 Should I start on
days of transaction history in her building an
Android version,
iPhone app. too?
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24. Effective Story Telling
Techniques, Tips and Suggestions
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25. Plan Ahead!
 Schedule ahead of time
o Regular, recurring sessions
o As-Needed by You or Team
 Send drafts of Stories ahead
o Links to your Stories, or
o Drafts in a “digest”
 Invite additional people when
needed
o Always the Team
o Often some key supporters
o When needed SME’s
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26. Be a strong facilitator
 Stick to your agenda  Set the tone
o DWYSYWD  Tell the Story
o Begin on time o Just the story, not the entire
 Use a parking lot history of the universe
o Avoid distractions  Listen
o Identify what “is needed, just o Story Telling actually isn’t
not now” about you. It’s about them.
 Timebox and Timecheck  Keep things moving
o Stick to your plan o Now is not the time to do
o Give updates on progress your housekeeping
 Watch for body language  Tame bullies
o Who is engaged?  Encourage wallflowers
o Who is tuning out?  Make it fun
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27. Pair-up
 Product Owner – your job is to focus on telling the Story, answering
questions and facilitating the discussion
o NOT fiddling around with issue-tracking tools, spreadsheets, etc.
 Story Telling Buddy – your job is to focus on making “on-the-spot
updates” to the details of the Story
o If you are quick and effective with the tools, great – still have a
backup with notepad and working pen
o You are the timekeeper – have signals worked out to indicate time
and an agreement to keep the Product Owner accountable
o Maintain the Parking Lot
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28. Know when to move on... And Iterate
 Rule #1: Timebox
o Timebox each story to 10
minutes for discussion, Q&A,
and “on-the-spot”
clarification/updates
o Estimate the story “as-is”
Six Letters
o Determine if the story needs Two Words
further refinement and review Easy to Say
in upcoming sessions Hard to Explain
• How will you know?
Harder to Do:
 Rule #2: Move on
o When the timebox expires
o When the Story detail is
Move On
deemed “Good Enough”
• How will you know?
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29. When Good Enough is Good Enough
 Know your team!  Good is a high standard
 Know your organizational o But not Perfect
requirements  Good enough changes over time
o “Good enough” Story details o With team knowledge,
may or may not fully satisfy composition, confidence, etc.
stringent PMO requirements  The Team defines “Good Enough”
 Do your homework o How will you know?
o Try to meet the definition
before taking a Story to
Telling sessions
o Do follow-up and detailing to
meet PMO or other rules
when needed
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30. Retrospect
 Each Session
o Spend the last 5 minutes with simple Retro activity – the focus is
on the Story Telling activity (if focus diverts to Team activity, defer
to Team Retrospective)
• What are we not doing that we should Start doing?
• What are we doing that we should Stop doing?
• What are we doing that works particularly well and should
Continue to do?
 On a periodic basis with the Team and other Stakeholders for a
focused session (30-45 minutes)
o What is working well and why?
o What is not working well or we should try differently and why?
• Asking why informs with more information but often requires
TIME to dig into and understand
o Prioritize action items and “Test & Learn” approach changes
• When needed/requested, or
• At key milestones (e.g. quarterly, after major releases, etc.)
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31. Additional Resources
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32. Current and Upcoming cPrime Resources
Available Now Stay Tuned!
 Certified Scrum Product Owner  Business Analysis Tools &
o Train and prepare for the Techniques Certification
CSPO certification through o Follow the BABOK and
the Scrum Alliance prepare for the CBAP
certification with IIBA
 Agile Development Requirements
Workshop  The Agile Product Owner Series
o Facilitated sessions led by an o Learn and practice advanced
experienced Agile techniques required for
Practitioner with intent to lead effective Product
by example and demonstrate Development, Requirements
good User Story definition, Management and Getting
understanding when and how Things Done
to manage Epics/Stories and
define Done
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33. Ask Us
agileexpert@cprime.com
 Format of this webinar was large-group and focused presentation, but… if you
have pressing questions or want to discuss how we can support you with
targeted, focused email responses and personalized training options…
 Our ability to respond is limited to time and resources - knowing that, we will
usually respond to simple, succinct feedback and questions, but may defer or
point to other resources for:
o Specific questions related to your environment that require deeper knowledge
o Complex questions or those that indicate a need for competency-development
 We are open to feedback to iterate our material and to identify areas of training
and knowledge-sharing that are important to you
o Our priority is based on your input
 If you want a private delivery of this webinar for your team, company,
professional group, etc. let us know
How will we know?
Just Ask!
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34. Follow Us
 LinkedIn
o http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhowey/
o http://www.linkedin.com/company/cprime-inc.
 Facebook & Twitter
o http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Cprime-
Inc/119227411493429
o http://twitter.com/cPrimeTraining
 Nationwide Training Schedule
o http://www.cprime.com/training/schedule.html
 Whitepapers and downloadable materials
o http://www.cprime.com/projectmanagementresources.html
 Our Blog
o http://www.cprime.com/blog/
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