Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Can you shuffle your stories?

No? Neither can I and I am not happy about it.

So I got my new iPod Touch. One thing I find slightly annoying is the fact that when you select an album it gives you the list of songs. But the first option is "Shuffle". Being used to LPs and Cassettes and CDs I don't really like to shuffle songs. I have listened to my favorite albums in a given order of songs for so long, that I want to listen to them in that order.

So I started wondering about the requirement for a shuffle option itself. And I conclude that it does nothing but brings a tiny bit of randomness in our lives. A little bit of surprise. That's all.

What is also important is that the songs that we listen to usually are shufflable :) Because I do listen to Indian classical music and you can't shuffle that. The khayal has to come before the drut rendition.

So what's this got to do with user stories? Well, I am currently plagued by dependant stories and I suddenly realized that they are like India Classical music. They can't be shuffled. Separate post about why I have too many dependant stories on the current project.

Dependant stories are not always avoidable. But it is ideal to have a lot of stories that can be shuffled.