Scarce Epic and Story description
Hi guys, in my project I work with a lot of very experienced developers and Product Owners. Meanwhile, in the epics, the description of a product and NFRs is very scarce. The same goes for the story tickets - very little in regard to description, ACs, and DoD.
As I said, developers and POs are very experienced, and when I raised this issue they told me that it's ok, because everyone knows what to do anyway.
How to tell if that's the case? What indicators of problems caused by poor refinement should I look for if there are any? I don't want to waste their time doing the paperwork, because "Working software over comprehensive documentation" after all.
Thank you all in advance!
Is the team consistently delivering usable increments of value that the stakeholders can review or use? If so, stop looking for problems.
I have worked with many Scrum Teams that don't even use the "standard" story templates. The goal is that there is enough information for people to understand the work that is needed. While some believe it would be great to have long detailed descriptions with elaborate documentation and acceptance criteria, it isn't necessary. And in fact, it takes away some autonomy of the Developers to architect a solution. Plus that level of documentation lends itself to old style requirements documents.
Being agile means that an organization or body of individuals working as a team can quickly adapt to new information in order to deliver the correct solution. That information will be discovered continuously while work is being done. Taking the time to provide detailed descriptions is often wasteful because as soon as work begins, new information is discovered that changes the original documentation.
As I said, developers and POs are very experienced, and when I raised this issue they told me that it's ok, because everyone knows what to do anyway.
How to tell if that's the case?
Experienced Developers and POs tend to be the ones who realize they don't know what to do anyway. They recognize a complex challenge and the need to engage in validated learning. That's a fairly good way of telling if people's supposed experience is indeed the case.
If more is genuinely known than is unknown -- and they're not just taking a leap of faith on a wing and a prayer -- what then do they hope to get out of Scrum?