Advanced Topics In Scrum » slack http://advancedtopicsinscrum.com Techniques for Applied Scrum Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:36:59 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 Is it ok to have Placeholder Stories? http://advancedtopicsinscrum.com/faq/is-it-ok-to-have-placeholder-stories/ http://advancedtopicsinscrum.com/faq/is-it-ok-to-have-placeholder-stories/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:30:07 +0000 admin http://advancedtopicsinscrum.com/?p=338 Choose:
  1. place-holder-story-scrum-agile-slackA placeholder story is a sign of sloppy planning
  2. All work should be known ahead of time and planned during sprint planning
  3. Yes, this allows the Product Owner to dump things into the sprint as needed.
  4. Sometimes we have a history of unexpected bugs/issues of handle it now. This allows us to track how much of that is showing up and leave some slack for when it does.
  5. We often have work we know we will have to do but, don’t know what it is yet.

Comment: This is a way to track how much unknown work is showing up and manage the amount by triggering a conversation when needed. One of the most common issues for scrum teams is what to do about work that we expect to have to do during a Sprint, but don’t actually know the details about yet, such as bugs we have to fix in existing systems, or expected sales support efforts. Using Place holder stories is a a method to manage these “known unknowns”.

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