Pocket guide

1. What is the authorized source and what scope does it establish?

2. Does the plan account for every mandatory element?

3. What concrete circumstance triggers the need?

4. What motivation or tension drives the person to act?

5. What outcome would make the progress recognizable?

6. What behavior or evidence demonstrates that the story occurs?

7. Where a Job Story exists, does it describe the problem without prescribing the solution?

8. What complexity does the system absorb, and what does it still pass on?

9. What must the person see now, and what can wait?

10. What will happen if they make a mistake, interrupt, or come back later?

11. Do they retain control over the decision, the data and the outcome?

12. Which part needs determinism and which part admits generation?

13. What is the simplest alternative that meets the product foundation?

14. What evidence would allow us to say it is done?

Seven reasons to stop an implementation

• STOP01 There is no identifiable product foundation, or the solution appears to precede the problem.

• STOP02 The plan does not account for the whole mandatory scope defined by product.

• STOP03 There is an intention to omit, modify or defer a part without an authorized decision.

• STOP04 A material ambiguity is being resolved by the agent without authorization.

• STOP05 The interface exposes internal complexity that the system could absorb.

• STOP06 A sensitive action lacks determinism, traceability or recovery.

• STOP07 The team can only demonstrate that the code works, not that the user makes progress.

Three sentences that protect judgment

What circumstance triggers this need?

What progress does it enable?

What evidence demonstrates it?

Technology can be extraordinarily sophisticated behind the interface. In front of it, there must remain a person focused on what they set out to achieve.