Supports Pillars:
Business Value, Product
Dependencies on Other Skills:
Story Writing, Story Estimation
Definition:
Story Picking is the process by which User Stories are selected for the next development cycle (whether this be a sprint, an iteration, or work-in-progress item). Normally a product owner will review priorities and weigh the cost/benefits of several potential User Stories in consultation with the Whole Team, to share goals and understand risks.
In Scrum, the Product Backlog theoretically describes all of the things that need to be done to have a finished product, though in practice things are often added or removed over time. The Product Backlog is prioritized so that the most valuable stories are near the top, and is broken down into releases where each release represents a shippable product. Releases are further broken down into Sprints. Before the beginning of any Sprint items from the Product Backlog are taken and estimated so that they can be added to the Sprint up to a level of commitment that the team agrees to.
Resources:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PlanningGame
http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/planninggame.html
Steps to Mastery:
Teams develop a definition of Done, which minimizes inertia from previous story work, allowing them to pick up a new priority every cycle.
Teams share product vision and known risks with product owners to help pick what's important for the next release.
Advanced teams find ways to decrease the cycle time between when a story is first conceived to when it is generating revenue for the business. Scrum teams have shortened their sprints from a calendar month to one or two weeks; XP teams are now normally on a weekly cadence, and some teams are on a daily (o faster) release cycle.
Organizational Support of this Skill:
Product Owners and Whole Team are available to discuss what stories are most important to do next.