Big user stories

Sometimes as a product owner you run into the problem of having to deliver a large piece of a project.  As mentioned on a previous post you want to avoid going to technical and constraining a dev team to follow what you’ve written when instead a story is the beginning of a conversation and isn’t a commitment to exactly how something should be done.  With a user story though you don’t want it to be too big and so you need to break it down into manageable parts. 

If for example you need your team to create a new micro-service to process requests for information you don’t want to write a story that doesn’t create any value once completed.  An example of this would be writing a story that addresses the need to create a database for a user to send, receive, and update information from.  Instead you’d write a story that starts perhaps with the first part of the process, i.e. send data.  With this broken out into its own story it should be discussed with the dev team that while we know that doesn’t encompass creating a database, receiving info, or updating info they will inherently know or be explicitly told that a database needs to be created in order to complete this story.  It should be noted that the very first story will also be front loaded with initial set up and configuration of other things and so it may be larger than subsequent stories.  That is ok though because we want a story to be able to stand on its own in terms of value being delivered even if it is only one portion of data being worked on, in this case sending information. 

What to do and not do when writing a user story

When writing your story don’t include the “How” it should be done.  That is up to the dev team to figure out the best way to do that and then create tasks/sub tasks to complete those things.  Dipping your toe in the “How” waters can lead to constraining a story to follow what you have written.  You also run the risk of getting too involved with the details of how the story and value is to be delivered and that can lead you to spending time on things that don’t need your attention, which then detracts from continuing to gather requirements and prioritize which valuable things need to be done first.

When writing acceptance criteria, it is important to write them so that you tell the developer and QA resources what you want them to test against.  All acceptance criteria should be testable.  A bad example would be, “X technology passes a flag to X other technology so that a customer doesn’t have tax withheld from their order”.  Instead a better example would be, “Demonstrate that a customer can click a button to then have taxes withheld from their order.”  The first example is too specific and limiting.  The second lets the dev team decide how to make something happen but is easy to demonstrate that it works or not, i.e. if it was done right this would be the result.

5 Whys

As I dive deeper into my role as a product owner, I am constantly looking for ways to improve to make things easier for my stake holders, coworkers, and dev team.  One of the things I’ve picked up when writing a user story is to utilize what is called the “5 Whys”. 

To help clarify a description of a story and the value to be delivered, which is then subsequently distilled down to acceptance criteria that a dev codes to and a QA resource tests against, asking “Why” leads the writer of the story to really drill down to what the value is that needs to be delivered.  It helps clarify unknown requirements at times and makes a story concise and easy to understand.

Professional business and real estate experience that has prepared and qualified me to be an apartment syndicator

I wanted to write out a post about my career in business and investing to recap my background and experience that fits well with moving into apartment syndication. Enjoy!

I’ve successfully partnered on two separate painting businesses. Both became licensed despite the first owner not securing a license for over 40 years and the second not having a journeyman painter in the company to start.  The first business hadn’t ever realized it's potential until we partnered and re-positioned it. It hadn’t ever done more than $60,000 in revenue and by the end of the first year of partnership we’d done over $113,000 in revenue. The following year we were a few hundred dollars short of $500,000 in gross revenue.  Unfortunately the owner of that first partnership passed away and so the business closed down. I started my own painting business in another partnership and despite not having a 40 year track history and customer base to work off of we did over $300,000 in revenue in our first year while also landing big commercial clients like Costco, Walmart, and the VA, which we hadn’t done previously in the other company.  We also implemented an exhaustive intake and retention marketing campaign that utilizes email marketing campaigns, live answering services, and videos that introduce us to our customers. This has been systematized and would be similar to how we’d operate updating investors on the status and progress of an investment as well as revamp the intake process for new tenants seeking to rent from us. I’ve since trained up the right resources and put systems in place to turn that business into passive income where it takes very little of my time now, but still spits off reliable income each and every month.

During college for my internship I managed an 82 unit apartment complex.  While initially there was a learning curve my key take away from my experience there was that it wasn’t as hard and daunting as I first thought it would be. It is also about providing good customer service, and I learned that it is about systems and just following those systems and being firm, but fair when enforcing rules, policies, and evictions.  In fact the times that the owner was lenient on late payments or continued noise problems more often than not those tenants and units ended up being the most trashed and payments weren’t collected or delayed in collecting through collections services. That experience was a huge confidence builder in demystifying what it takes to run a top notch property, that was large, run well, and provided great housing for people.  It gave me experience and the direct knowledge of good and bad practices when it comes to owning an apartment complex. I knew after finishing my internship that this was something I was going to do later and be more successful at than my competition because of my experience there.

I’ve also consistently shown results in my professional career and been promoted several times in the tech industry despite not having a degree in computer science.  I did that through hard work, boot camps, courses, earning my MBA, ongoing meetups, and certifications. Currently as a Product Owner I help the team know what to work on next, resolve roadblocks, find ways to improve the team and output, and communicate directly to my stakeholders on the progress of projects and any issues we’re having.  If they need to be resolved I am forecasting those ahead of time in order to bring on additional personnel resources or software/hardware resources. This of course is similar to communicating with investors on the progress of projects, forecasting capital and human resources to turn over vacant properties and upgrade them as well as giving progress reports monthly or quarterly to investors via email newsletter.  

Separate from apartment syndication I’ve helped raise over a quarter million dollars for doing flips.  This is partially from my own funds, but also through lines of credit for businesses, HELOCs, credit cards, and three outside partners.  The very first flip that we completed was hands on, but profited well above projections at a gross profit of $34,000 before taxes.  During the first flip we realized that we wanted to scale the business and so we rolled profits from that first flip into the second. We hired a general contractor that we vetted after interviewing several qualified general contractors.  He has been great to work with, but as we projected he is faster and ahead of schedule, cheaper, and doing better quality work than what we did on our first flip. This has largely taken the partnership out of the day to day and I am almost completely passive in this venture now as well.

I also run my own real estate mastermind group once a week.  In this meeting we follow a format to update the group on what we’re working on, any problems we have that the group can resolve, and set goals and hold each other accountable for said goals.  This group has been insightful for different niches of the real estate investing sector and learning things about said niches. Being accountable and taking action is the core of the meeting and will be beneficial to myself and others going forward.

I am enrolled in a syndication school, am voraciously reading blogs, books, and listening to podcasts that are strictly related to syndication all of which will lead to me acting as General Partner on an apartment syndication.