Posted on 18, Jul 2011
One customer asked us an interesting question regarding relations of stories in ScrumDesk.
What ScrumDesk supports now is simple relations tracking solution. Very simple and basic functionality – possibility to track, see and print out it in documents.
For the first look some basic functionality in ScrumDesk is missing. Functionality similar to Gannt chart way of relations (Finish-Start,Finish-Finish, etc.).
Gannt chart relations (Source: Wikipedia)
As you probably know, a good story in agile is written to fulfill INVEST principle:
The first is (and not by coincidence) Independent. The reason is simple. To track dependencies in your hundreds stories backlog is a mess. A big mess. A task that is highly potential waste.
In our experience 80-90% of stories could be rewritten into independent stories. How to do that? I do not have an answer for you. It is not easy, it requires an experience, feeling and still see a value in a slice. But it can be done.
But how to manage dependencies? IT IS ABOUT PRIORITY! Priority is a driver how to order things in agile, not dependencies. Order stories into releases and sprints. This helps you to forget about dependencies. It is more important.
Set an importance of basic functionality higher than advanced functionality. This way you can add another brick to your wall and make it higher. Brick by brick.
Build a product brick by brick (Source: David Korona, http://www.davidkorona.com)
P.S.
Of course, enterprise backlogs probably require to manage dependencies as well, but it is typically program/product level in which you need to track dependencies of stories on which more teams are working. But this requires probably different beast to manage it.
What about great product owners?