Hi,

I am new to agile and I am trying to understand how gathering requirements works in Agile specifically SCRUM.

From what I have read:

The initial user stories are a one line statement which takes the form: As a ... I want to ... so that ... and a priority.

Then during the planning meeting you discuss the story with the client and developers. You get the story point , acceptance criteria and finalise the priority.

However, the "How to demo" or acceptance criteria is also meant to be a quick one line statement. So where do you specify details such as - all the different columns and the calculations a report needs to show OR what exact fields to capture in a user signup form.

At what stage  are these details flushed out and are they documented anywhere? I am asking because in case of a simple report with 4 or 5 columns the requirement is quite straightforward. But if you have a lot of columns or columns with specific calculation and algorithms, I would think this information will need to be documented before the planning meeting.

Thanks heaps.

Hi:

Think of User Stores as poor man's data flow diagrams:  You capture the essence of the process (i.e., - "As a ... I wnat to... So that... and a priority), but you do not follow the data flows.  As you are not "interviewing the data" you run into poblems when you try to understand the data, which is necessary to, for example, design a report.

Also for other than trivial systems, you run into problems if you try to understand the data bottom up.   Top down data analysis, where you learn the data flows from a higher level of abstraction, and THEN drill into the data details is the way to go.

I know I did not give you a solution, but understanding the problem that you are up against is key to what ever solution you come up with.  (I myself, would use Data Flow Diagrams to understand top down the data.)

Remember:  While Agile is about minimal documentation, it is also about quality documentation, that is a heavy focus on the essentials.  Quick essential data flow diagrams mee this criteria

Tony