Create or Refine the Stories as Preparation for Future Work

Many teams that use iteration-based approaches refine the stories in preparation for the next iteration. Sometimes the team realizes it needs to workshop stories at that meeting so it’ll be ready for the next iteration.

Teams that use flow might refine stories just in time to work on them.

There are several issues with planning the next set of stories for the team: the team often discovers valuable learning with its current set of stories; the product owner might hear from the product manager or support or customers about the stories the team released earlier; and the product owner might want to take advantage of more market knowledge.

Because the team finishes stories on a regular basis, the product owner continually plans and refines stories for the team. Sometimes the product owner can refine the stories alone, and sometimes not.

One way to refine stories so the entire team understands them is to use the Three Amigos approach.^[24] When teams use the Three Amigos, they split into triads of one developer, one tester, and one product owner or business analyst. The idea is that each person has a unique perspective on the possible story:

• The developer thinks about how to implement the story.
• The tester thinks about what can go wrong.
• The product owner or business analyst thinks about what the customer or business wants to accomplish with this story.

The nice thing about all of these perspectives is that the three people discuss the story in its entirety. The more they discuss the story, the more they can clarify it. If they add acceptance criteria, especially in the form of Given-When-Then, the team is much more likely to understand the story.