Concepts

Task

• A task is the basic unit of work.

• A task is estimated in hours and quarter hours.

• A task larger than 8 hours should be broken down into smaller tasks.

• A task with smaller estimate is favored over larger estimates.

• A task can not be less than a quarter hour.

Story

• A story is the basic unit of project specification.

• A story can have an optional estimate in story points.

• A story has 1 or more tasks.

• A story with a combined task estimate of more than 24 hours should be broken down into smaller stories.

• A story has an acceptance criteria for the story.

• A story has 1 or more test scenarios to validate that acceptance criteria has been met.

• A story has a current state (e.g. new, active, resolved, closed).

• A story has a current stage.

Feature

• A feature is the basic unit of project scope.

• A feature aggregates story task estimates to feature hour estimate.

• A feature aggregates story estimates to feature story point estimate.

• A feature defines risk that is used in calculations to pad estimates.

• A feature can have 1 or more stories (scenarios).

Project

• A project is the basic unit of billing.

• A project aggregates feature hour estimates to project hour estimate.

• A project aggregates feature story point estimate to project story point estimate.

• A project can have 1 or more stories.

Release

• A release is the basic unit of delivery.

• A release can contain 1 or more completed stories.

Stage

• A stage can be a work center that represents a value added stage where various actions are taken to deliver a story.

• A stage can be a queue that represents a non-value added stage where work is held until its down stream stage is ready to pull work.

• A stage can pull work from multiple upstream stages.

• A stage can enforce entry requirements for entering the stage.

• A stage can be split into a doing and done state.

• A stage doing state represents a value added state where work is being actively done on a story.

• A stage done state represents a non-value added state were work is queuing before it is pulled to the next stage.

• A stage can enforce exit requirements for exiting the stage or entering the stage's done state.

• A stage can enforce a limit on work in progress within the stage.

• A stage can be split into doing and done states with done being a non-value added state that work flows into after the stage exit requirements are met.

• A stage can enforce requirements for entering the post-stage.