session · shaping
Story refinement
30 minutes per story. PO writes; Developer reads; states named. The Definition-of-Ready walk that turns a candidate story (from the Epic kickoff) into a story the Amigos session can run on.
When
- Between Epic kickoff and amigos. Per story, ahead of the developer pulling.
- Weekly cadence for the active stories — the PO holds a refinement slot the Developer drops into.
Who
- PO — owns the story shape.
- The Developer who will likely pull — reads, asks clarifying questions.
- (Optional) Designer when state coverage is non-obvious.
Time-box
30 minutes. Anything longer is shaping the wrong thing — the story is too big, or the brief is thin, or the Epic kickoff didn't converge.
Inputs
- The candidate story from Epic kickoff.
- The Feature Brief.
- The wireframe and state names.
Agenda
| Time | What |
|---|---|
| 0–5 min | Read the story aloud in its current form. "As Gal, I want…, so that…" If the PO can't read it without rewriting on the fly, the story isn't refined. |
| 5–15 min | Walk the states — every state from the wireframe that this story affects. Empty, loading, success, error/validation, error/network, edge case. Each state is named in the story; no implicit states. |
| 15–25 min | Walk the DoR checklist. All 9 points. States named? Acceptance criteria specific? Out-of-scope explicit? Sized 1–3 days? (See Story DoR.) |
| 25–30 min | Sign as ready. The PO marks DoR satisfied. The Developer signals they could pull this story today. If not, the story stays in refinement. |
Outputs
- A refined story with all 9 DoR points checked.
- A states list in the story body.
- Explicit out-of-scope — what this story doesn't cover, with destination ("covered in story Y, in this Epic, after release 2").
What good looks like
The Developer reads the refined story and knows what to build without asking. They can estimate the work in their head. They can identify the riskiest part (which becomes the amigos session's focus).
The PO writes the story in Gal's voice, not in system voice. "As Gal, I want to submit a grade with a keyboard shortcut so I can move to the next exam without lifting my hands from the keyboard." Not "As a user, I want the form to accept keyboard input."
Anti-pattern
The session becomes a developer explaining to the PO why the story is hard. The conversation drifts into implementation; the story doesn't change shape; no DoR is checked. Fix: if the story is genuinely hard to build, that is a sizing problem — split it, or escalate to the Tech Lead for an ADR. Refinement doesn't solve hard; it makes the story pullable.
A second anti-pattern: refining 10 stories in one 90-minute session. Each story gets 5 minutes; none gets refined; all enter amigos thin. Fix: refinement is 30 minutes per story, and the cadence is weekly, not batched.
See also
- Canon — What We Build · Story writing
- Template — Story
- Checklist — Story · Definition of Ready
- Practice — Story writing
- Clinic — A story without a state
- Next session — Amigos session