Chapter 7. User Stories and Release Planning

Most XP projects start with the creation of user stories and release planning. On an ideal project, the customer writes the user stories first, the development team estimates the time required for each story, and then the whole team develops a release plan that divides the stories up among several iterations.

The details for each iteration are then planned in a separate activity right at the start of the iteration. This "just-in-time-planning" technique, where details are left until the last possible moment, is used to avoid expending effort on something the customer later decides either to change or discard.

In practice, creating the user stories, planning the release, and planning the first iteration often overlap. The release plan changes as new stories are created and existing stories are revised throughout the project (one reason for leaving the details to iteration planning). In fact, writing stories, estimating them, and packaging them into iterations are activities that extend through the life of the project. In our in our test drive, however, we'll take them up in sequence.

In day 1 of our test drive, our goal is to answer the following questions about release planning and story writing:

• Does a tester have a role here? (We think so.)

• What goals should a tester focus on?

• What is the best way to accomplish these goals?

• How about some examples?

We'll also propose some exercises that will allow you to practice. You can find our answers in the back of the book.