Convert three user stories into symptoms, and find what the story left out

short · 35 min · Objective 5.1

Task

Practise step one of the method on real reports: turn a story into testable symptoms, identify what was not said, and write the question that would have produced it.

Steps

  1. Write lab/method/stories.txt with three fault reports in the words a user would use, one per line.
  2. For each, write lab/method/symptoms.csv with header story,symptom,testable,how_to_observe breaking the story into at least three symptoms and marking which are testable as stated.
  3. Write lab/method/questions.csv with header story,question,what_it_would_settle with at least five questions per story, including one about what changed and one about who else is affected.
  4. Write lab/method/steps.csv with header step,produces,what_the_next_step_needs listing the six steps in order plus documentation.
  5. Write lab/method/backup.md stating which step the backup belongs to and why it cannot wait until the plan of action.

Verify

grep -c . lab/method/stories.txt
awk -F, 'NR>1 && NF>=4 {n++} END {print n" symptom(s)"}' lab/method/symptoms.csv
awk -F, 'NR>1 && tolower($3)=="no" {n++} END {print n+0" symptom(s) not testable as stated"}' lab/method/symptoms.csv
awk -F, 'NR>1 && NF>=3 {n++} END {print n" question(s)"}' lab/method/questions.csv
awk -F, 'NR>1 && NF>=3 {n++} END {print n" method step(s)"}' lab/method/steps.csv
grep -Eic 'identify|first|before' lab/method/backup.md

Three stories, nine or more symptoms with at least one not testable as stated, fifteen or more questions, seven method steps, and the backup note. If every symptom was testable as stated, the stories were written by a technician rather than in a user's words.

Notes

'What changed' is the single most productive question in this job, and users volunteer the answer only when asked directly. Its absence from a question list is the most common omission in this lab.

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