Split stories as late as possible
Hi everyone.
I was reading about how to write user-stories and came across a section where it mentioned that one of the best ways to manage dependencies between stories is to "Split as late as possible until the last responsible moment".
I understand the concepts of "last responsible moment" and why we should defer adding details (acceptance criteria and splitting stories) until we are about to start work on a story (like 1 to 2 weeks before starting work on the story).
What I am not able to understand is how does "Split as late as possible" can help avoid dependencies. Can someone please help me understand how this works? Thank You
What I am not able to understand is how does "Split as late as possible" can help avoid dependencies.
It doesn't. It helps you manage them. Their resolution is essentially ignored until the last responsible moment. In other words, time and effort is not expended on resolving dependencies precociously, when requirements might be further refined and their dependencies are most likely to change, or retired from the Product Backlog altogether. You're helping to avoid overproduction (refining too much too early), one of the 7 mudas or lean wastes.
Bear in mind however that the last responsible moment may be sooner than you think, especially with external dependencies (e.g. suppliers) which have to be lined up with sufficient notice to do certain work.
Thankyou Ian
Thanks for a great response Ian, I have one small remark about dependencies: it is impossible to illuminate ALL dependencies in Scrum team even in theory. You can only MANAGE them as Ian said.
So don't exhaust yourself trying to fight all dependencies, just treat them as the natural phenomena and do your best to manage them for a teams benefit