How do we turn oversized User Stories into smaller, meaningful pieces of value without breaking the user journey?
This interactive workshop introduces teams to the SPIDR story-splitting technique through a hands-on pizza-themed experience.
Instead of simply explaining the theory, participants work in teams, explore different perspectives and practise finding the first useful slice of a large User Story.
What does the workshop cover?
🍕 Why slice stories?
Understand the difference between completing technical subtasks and delivering something meaningful that a user can actually experience.
🔪 Meet SPIDR
Explore five approaches to splitting stories:
S – Spikes: investigate uncertainty.
P – Paths: split by user journeys or scenarios.
I – Interfaces: start with one interface or platform.
D – Data: begin with one manageable data type.
R – Rules: start with the simplest valid business rules.
👥 The Slicing Game
Two teams approach the same challenge from different perspectives: Product and Delivery. They create candidate User Stories, review each other's solutions and challenge assumptions.
🍕 The Slice Test
Put proposed stories through four checks:
Small enough to deliver within the delivery window.
Valuable to the user.
End-to-end, including implementation, integration and testing.
Testable and demonstrable.
The key takeaway
The goal isn't simply to make tickets smaller. It's to help teams deliver meaningful outcomes sooner, get feedback earlier, reduce risk and improve delivery predictability.
Don't split stories to make tickets smaller. Split them so the team can finish meaningful work sooner.
SPIDR → Slice → Test → Learn
