Remember that project scope management is different in agile projects than in traditional project management. For example, participants in agile projects typically spend less time defining scope in early stages of a project. However, Third Avenue has high hopes for the healthcare app and wants to make sure that all team members work out some basic, crucial requirements before proceeding. Also, agile projects generally require more iterations of working software than in traditional project management, so management must be willing to trust the process once the basic requirements are in place and understood.

To help develop scope, agile and Scrum approaches employ cards, user stories, and technical stories. User stories are often written on index cards and then arrayed on a wall or table top to help the agile team plan how to implement the ideas into the product. Technical stories are then developed from the user stories. Technical stories can contain one or more technical tasks that developers use to chart progress on a sprint board as work is conducted throughout a sprint. This approach facilitates group discussion, which often leads to a much better set of product specifications than the rather simple ideas expressed on the cards.

One of managements key goals is to have the team develop ideas for completing a minimum viable product (MVP) as soon as possible. An MVP is a streamlined, stripped-down version of a product that can still be released for real-world use and review. It contains a subset of features that will be included in the final version. An MVP must possess several key properties: It has sufficient usable features and value that users will buy it. These early users will see the potential benefits of the product and trust that it will only improve in later iterations. It provides a feedback loop that will help programmers improve the existing features and add new features with minimal delays.

Remember that the overall budget for the project is $350,000, and Third Avenue management would like to see a finished application available in four months. The MVP version, of course, must be available much more quicklymanagement wants it to be ready to ship in six weeks. The project team has decided that sprints will be done every two weeks, so the MVP version must be ready to ship for use and review after three sprint cycles. The budget for completing the MVP is $120,000.

4. Develop an initial scope statement. Make sure to follow the detailed process shown in Module 5. Recall that a good scope statement requires some of the items shown in the following table. Components of a scope statement Information from the project charter Product scope description Functional and design specifications for developing software Product user acceptance criteria Detailed information for project deliverables Project boundaries, constraints, and assumptions References to supporting documents, such as product specifications or corporate policies Based on your work in developing the software requirements and scope statement, develop a list of features that will become the MVP for the first iteration of the health-care app. For example, the programmers' initial ideas for the app include (a) an electronic address book for recording contact data of doctors and other health care professionals; and (b) an emergencies list for storing vital phone numbers and addresses of hospitals and other emergency venues. Should these two items be combined in the MVP version? Consider such issues as you develop your list