Group items tagged

"Non-Functional" Stories AllyPerformance OptimizationPerformance, scalability, and stability—so-called non-functional requirements—should be scheduled with stories too. Be sure that these stories have precise completion criteria. See Performance Optimization for more.

Spike Stories AllySpike SolutionsSometimes programmers won't be able to estimate a story because they don't know enough about the technology required to implement the story. In this case, create a story to research that technology. An example of a research story is "Figure out how to estimate 'Send HTML' story". Programmers will often use a spike solution (see Spike Solutions) to research the technology, so these sorts of stories are often called spike stories.

About Spikes A spike solution, or spike, is a technical investigation. It's a small experiment to research the answer to a problem. For example, a programmer might not know whether Java throws an exception on arithmetic overflow. A quick ten-minute spike will answer the question.

Performing the Experiment The best way to implement a spike is usually to create a small program or test that demonstrates the feature in question. You can read as many books and tutorials as you like, but it's my experience that nothing helps me understand a problem more than writing working code. It's important to work from a practical point of view, not just a theoretical one.

Writing code, however, often takes longer than reading a tutorial. Reduce that time by writing small, standalone programs.