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Does Your Software Need to Go On a Diet?

Have you ever found yourself with a large feature that seems difficult to break up and still have business value?

Do you have features with estimates that are longer than the size of your iteration? Read on.

Large features that don't fit within a development iteration can cause problems in an Agile project. You want to break them up, but have struggled to find a useful way to do it without crippling the functionality.

Below are some suggestions for putting your extra large user stories on a diet.

• Defer error cases to a later iteration.
  
  Handling validation, exceptional cases, and error conditions can constitute a large portion of some features. Consider implementing just
  the positive path as a first cut to present to the customer, splitting out the error handling as a separate story.
  


• Separate user interface work from processing
  
  Sometimes a feature has both a heavy user interface portion as well as a substantial back end. It may be possible to implement just the back end business logic, which could
  then be tested with scripts or from canned data. For example, a report generator might need a configuration user interface ultimately, but you could demonstrate the report output
  from sample data to begin with.
  


• Try adding a manual step before automating
  
  Some features are difficult because they seem to need to full automation. Adding a simple manual step can sometimes greatly simplify the implementation. Again, work with your customer to see what is possible.
  


• Build a specific case before generalizing
  
  Often you might anticipate a set of features needing the same type of functionality, so you design a generalized implementation that
  will support future features. While a little foresight can be helpful, you may discover that building a specific implementation of a feature
  is both easier and more informative than generalizing. You might actually uncover a better design.
  

Software is hard enough to build on time and under budget without letting extra bloat creep into both the requirements and the design.

If you can work closely with your customer to cut the fat in feature requests, you'll both be much better shape.


For more on agile tools and techniques: http://www.extremeplanner.com
(Tags: agile, project management)

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