Defining scope is an iterative, interactive process. As you go through it, you'll
find elements of your scope expanding, shrinking or changing shape in response to feedback
from analyzing and planning out the work.
Note: It's a good idea to get the feature definition process under way
before
setting up planning folders (see
Create a planning folder), because defining
features gives you the raw material for your planning process.
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Before you get started, you'll do some kind of user research, even if it's only
a few phone calls, to get an idea of the needs of the customers you hope to
satisfy. Express these needs and desires as stories about what a user can do
with your product. Then create an artifact for each user story you identify.
A user story describes the situation after your product has been launched:
What can the user do now that they couldn't do before?
Tip: For best
results, your user story artifact should by limited to a clear description
of the capability you want in the product. Remember that a user story is not
an implementation plan. Details about the implementation will be recorded in
the user story artifact, but when you write a user story, try to leave the
implementation up to the developer who will be responsible for
it.
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You may want to define one or more fictional users who resemble the real-life
users of your product. This can help simplify and focus your thinking.
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Use the Priority field to express your opinion of how important the story is to
the user. In general, the most eagerly desired capabilities will be addressed
first. (During implementation planning, your Priority setting will be used as
one input in summing up the effort involved in each priority level.)
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Make it as clear as you can at the outset what degree of functionality is
acceptable. For example, if your team is creating an airplane, how high must it
be able to fly? How far must it go before refueling? How many passengers must it
carry? Stating your acceptance criteria concretely helps reduce the time needed
for ongoing reviews and changes.