{"id":1775,"date":"2013-11-27T06:02:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-27T14:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lookforwardconsulting.com\/?p=1775"},"modified":"2025-02-20T14:02:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T14:02:06","slug":"system-specs-scrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thescrumacademy.com\/es\/2013\/11\/27\/system-specs-scrum\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are the System Specs in Scrum?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This was a really good question in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/groups?home=&amp;gid=52030\">Scrum Practitioners LinkedIn group<\/a>. \u00a0What started out as a short response, became a blog post so I decided to share my ideas here as well.<\/p>\n<p>Scrum is silent on the topic of specifications &#8211; it neither requires them nor prohibits them. \u00a0I know this is not a very good answer. \u00a0As many people will tell, user stories are very common way to document the Product Backlog, but \u00a0they are not required by Scrum. \u00a0As a consultant, I almost always use user stories, so where do the user stories come from? \u00a0Well\u2026.that depends &#8211; the ultimate consultant&#8217;s answer.<\/p>\n<p>For many, many products, project or programs a simple conversation captured in the form of a user story is sufficient. \u00a0The user stories are not a replacement for a spec, so do not try to write all the details that would be in a spec on a user story. \u00a0There is just not that much room on a 4 by 6 inch index card. \u00a0User stories are a reminder that we had a conversation about a feature and what is persisted on a card are the key points we do not want to forget.<\/p>\n<p>However, just because we do not have specs that does not mean we do not need to know the details commonly contained within specs. \u00a0The difference in Scrum is that we only investigate the details when the feature is scheduled to be implemented. Essentially, we gather the details just-in-time. \u00a0So where do we persist the details? \u00a0In the code and in the test cases. \u00a0IME, most of the details in the specs are what eventually ends up in code and\\or the tests. \u00a0So if this is true, why not just write the details in the tests and write the code that passes your tests? \u00a0This\u00a0is essentially\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Test-driven_development\">Test-driven Development<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For other types of products, or certain types of customers, you need more than a lightweight documentation tool like user stories. \u00a0In that case, I would recommend writing some use cases to develop a shared understanding of the system behavior. \u00a0I would suggest to stay away from defining up front most of the implementation details. \u00a0Focus the use cases on high-level requirements. \u00a0For systems that have lots of complicated UI interactions, use low-fidelity, hand drawn sketches. \u00a0These sketches are not to document the requirements, but to communicate the intention of the features and help people build a shared understand of the system and it&#8217;s interactions.<\/p>\n<p>As you get to more regulated products &#8211; where the cost of failure in the terms of hardware, lives lost, environmental impact or certain types of financial transactions &#8211; then detailed specs become (mostly) unavoidable. \u00a0In that case, I would treat the specs as something you write <strong>AFTER<\/strong> the features are completed. \u00a0The specs serve as a historical document telling auditors or maintenance programmers what you built rather than using the specs as a design blueprint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was a really good question in the Scrum Practitioners LinkedIn group. \u00a0What started out as a short response, became a blog post so I decided to share my ideas  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[208,7,22,25,34,6,209,24,206,70,214,210,5,36,92,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advanced-practitioners","category-agile-scrum","category-coaching","category-communication","category-documentation","category-extreme-programming","category-leaders","category-legacy-code","category-practitioners","category-product-backlog","category-scrum-artifacts","category-scrum-framework","category-scrum-methodology","category-test-driven-development","category-use-cases","category-user-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>System Specs in Scrum<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Where are the System Specs in Scrum? 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