INVEST in Good Stories, and SMART Tasks
http://xp123.com/articles/invest-in-good-stories-and-smart-tasks/ INVEST in Good Stories I - not overlap in concept N - the essence, not the details V - valuable to the customer E - We don't need an exact estimate, but just enough to help the customer rank and schedule the story's implementation S - Smaller stories tend to get more accurate estimates. T - Writing a story card carries an implicit promise: "I understand what I want well enough that I could write a test for it." SMART Tasks S - S pecific enough. helps people understand whether the tasks add up to the full story. M - The key M easure is, "can we mark it as done?" A - The task owner should expect to be able to A chieve a task. R - Every task should be R elevant, contributing to the story at hand. T - A task should be T ime-boxed : limited to a specific duration. This doesn't need to be a formal estimate in hours or days, but there should be a