DirtyInformation

Story Splitting Revisited

23 Feb 2014

A few weeks ago @joescii and I started tweeting each other about splitting stories into smaller chunks. This lead to a blog post by me. Then came a full episode of This Agile Life, and another blog post by Joe who apparently took the episode’s advice and spammed me. After all this there should be almost nothing left to say. That is what I thought, but after reading Joe’s post I thought I would take my own crack at splitting up the story and then Joe and I could SPAM the world a little more while we compare notes.

Joe’s article is all about splitting a larger feature into smaller stories and what those stories became. The large feature, as Joe described it:

As an engineer, I would like the ability to page through the results.

A simple example of paging a list of results. If you’ve been doing development for any length of time you’ve more than likely had to deal with this exact situation. We’d probably say, “That is good enough. I think we’ll stick with that story and move on.” Really what you are thinking is, “I know all there is to know about paging, and I am tired of sitting in this meeting.” What you really should be saying is, “I want to give my customer great flexibility. QA and Code Reviewers should have something a little more focused. If that new kid has to work on this I hope he doesn’t miss something important.”

That high level feature leaves a lot of interpretation surrounding what exactly the functionality is that the customer wants.

Before we move forward, please go read Joe’s post. The rest of this I think will be a lot better if you understand the back story a little more. I’m coming into this with about the same level of knowledge that you just got out of Joe’s post. In the words of Peter Pan, “Here we go!”

  Given a search result containing a large number of pages
  When the current page does not display what I am looking for
  Then I can move to the next page of results

  Given a search result containing a large number of pages
  When I pass the page that I wanted
  Then I can move to the previous page of results

  When on a search result containing only one page
  Then only one result page is available

  Given a search result containing a large number of pages
  When browsing the results
  Then the total number of result pages is diplayed

  Given a search result contaning a large number of pages
  When browsing the results
  Then I can tell what the current page is

  Given a search result containg a large number of pages
  When the current page does not display what I am looking for
  Then I can jump to any result page

One of the scenarios doesn’t have a Given, Amos.

That was intentional. Not every scenario needs a gigantic setup or a whole lot of action before getting where you need. I try to make my stories concise.

You may also notice that I tried to capture a little of the “why” within the scenario. I also tried to leave a little of the how up to the person creating the final product. This allows a little expandability within the scope of the application. Maybe the user as buttons and page numbers all over the page? Maybe there are keyboard shortcuts? How about mouse gestures like the Mac? By leaving the story a little vague in that area we are allowing for a whole host of ideas to come out. I guess this means that I’m concise, but not precise.

If you are making these Scenarios executable you could execute each story under multiple “personae” and each one uses a different idea from the above. You could have a power user persona that uses keyboard shortcuts, a mouser who uses mouse gestures, and a clicker who loves the buttons. I would suggest each persona also be its own story. I think I just jumped to a new topic? I guess we’ll save that idea for another day.

Edit

I would actually remove the scenario with no Given and replace it with two scenarios that cover a larger set of circumstances.

  Given a set of search results
  When I am on the last page
  Then I may only go to previous pages

  Given a set of search results
  When I am on the first page
  Then I may only proceed to the next pages

The Past

• Testing Named Agents 03 Feb 2017
• Two Duplication Refactorings in Elixir 18 Jan 2017
• B is for BigDecimal 24 Sep 2014
• A is for Abbrev 02 Sep 2014
• Missed Chances 15 Aug 2014
• Style Guides are Failures 15 Jun 2014
• What is BDD anyway? 15 Apr 2014
• An Agile Contract 31 Mar 2014
• What Do I Want 23 Mar 2014
• Just the Tip 16 Mar 2014
• Important Partnerships 11 Mar 2014
• Lost in Translation 03 Mar 2014
• Story Splitting Revisited 23 Feb 2014
• Let your yes be yes and your no be no 16 Feb 2014
• Lethal Injection 09 Feb 2014
• Smaller is Better 02 Feb 2014
• A Second Time 26 Jan 2014
• Introspective 20 Jan 2014
• Self Reflection for the Win 06 Dec 2013
• Why? Why? Why? 30 Sep 2013
• A New Gig 18 Sep 2013
• Exceptional Comments 15 Jun 2013
• Role Objects in Acceptance Tests 30 Apr 2013
• Open Closed Ruby Woes 28 Apr 2013
• Write Something 12 Apr 2013
• A Great Cast of Characters 06 Mar 2012
• When is the Release Party? 19 Aug 2011
• Single Responsibilty, How Did I Forget You 12 Apr 2011
• Change Classes not Styles 05 Nov 2010
• My MongoDB Cookbook Recipe 20 Jul 2010
• Agile Says What? 05 Nov 2009
• Inject & Me - BFFs 07 Sep 2008