How to Decompose Atomic Requirements into Better User Stories

When coaching product managers, I help them identify complex requirements and decompose them into atomic requirements. That is, requirements which cannot be decomposed any further. As it’s not unusual for newly minted product managers to blend multiple requirements into a single user story, I’ll prepare a checklist which they can refer to when drafting their requirements.

If you work in an Agile or Scrum environment, you might find the ‘flexible’ nature of the sprint/epic/releases can undermine your project estimates. If that’s the case, consider using the following guidelines to identify atomic requirements, which you can then convert into easier to estimate user stories.

How to Ask for Constructive Feedback on your Writing

Seeking feedback is essential to improve any skill whether it’s writing, planning or coding. Instead of running away from feedback, look for ways to weave it into your overall writing process.
By leveraging feedback, you’ll be able to identify blind spots and areas where you can improve, ultimately leading to higher-quality writing.
Here’s a favorite quote from Anne Lamott from the introduction to “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life” about the value of feedback:
“I know I’m somewhat criticism-deaf, criticism-resistant, but I try to keep an open mind about it because I know that being a good writer has to involve being a good reader and a good listener.”

MS Word – Why don’t images appear after copy/paste?

SJ from Montreal asked us on Twitter why she couldn’t paste a picture into a new MS Word document.

She had just added workflow diagrams to an SOP document which the Compliance Team had requested. However, when she pasted the images into Word, none of the diagrams appeared. This can be very frustrating, especially when you’re under a deadline and you become the bottleneck getting the document out. In this case, SJ pinged us and we were able to fix it over a few messages.

Using Google Gemini to streamline the Software Requirements Specifications Writing Process

Writing business requirements? This guide shows you how AI (Google Gemini) can help draft, write, and review your SRS docs. Don’t worry, it won’t replace you, but save time, improve quality, and free you for strategic tasks.

12 Step Action Plan to Future-proof your IT Job from AI

Creating an action plan to protect your career from AI’s impact is crucial as it transforms the IT industry, specifically roles which will be party or fully automated. In this tutorial, I’ll look at the types of roles most at risk and the steps you can take to 1) protect your job and 2) find ways to capitalize on this opportunity.

Google Gemini – How to export answers to Google Docs

You can export responses from Google Gemini to Google Docs. This is very helpful if you want to save your material for team projects and share the results of your query with other team members.
In this Google Gemini training course, we’ll look at the basics of how to use Gemini, then work up to more complicated scenarios where you can integrate it into your daily operations.