Agile Definition of Done and Doing Dishes

Agile Humor, a true story of agile clashing with teenage chores.

I just had a conversation with my teenage son regarding what “doing the dishes” means, which evolved several user stories which included the following using the As a ___ I need ____ so that _____ format for user stories.  I realized that we never had a decent list of user stories, and we had no acceptance criteria, plus the definition of done was never stated.

As a family member I need the dishwasher to be unloaded so that we don’t end up with an endless backlog of dishes.

As a family member I need the dishwasher to be loaded so that the dishes don’t pile up endlessly in the kitchen.

As a family member I need the pots and pans that didn’t fit into the dishwasher to be washed so that they are available to be used in the future.

As a family member I need the dishes to be put away after they are dry so that the counter tops are clear to prepare the next meal.

I guess it could have been phrased as a single user story that stated:

As a member of the family I need the dishes to be done so that the kitchen will be clean and ready for the next meal.

This would have included acceptance criteria that covered the user stories from above, but as a teenage boy who wants to get out of the dishes as soon as possible this story proved to be too epic.

See also:

• User Story
• Definition of Done
• Epic
• Acceptance Critiera

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