User stories are representation of business requirements in terms of business functionality. A user story should be small to fit an index card, should contain the conversation, and the confirmation on how it will be accepted once developed. It should contain enough detail to estimate and hence should follow the INVEST property - Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable.
Agile focuses on iterative delivery incrementally adding features for customer verification. Iterations with a predefined goal consist of a planning session, period of work from 2 to 4 weeks, and a retrospective. Every retrospective is to adjust the process to enhance productivity.
A Release is a group of iterations where the outcome of each iteration cumulativey is designed to deliver a major feature to the end users. The working software delivered in each release is expected to be highly stable.
The product or the project with all the known features to be implemented throughout the project. If the focus is delivering a product that has a longer life span compared to a project, then, this will start with a market reserch and feasibility studies. If there is a value in proceeding with the product development, the road map is started from where the product backlog is created and groomed.
A product portfolio is comprised of all the products an organization has. A product portfolio may comprise of different categories of products, different product lines and finally the individual product itself. Product portfolio ownership rests with the Product Owners or Product Managers.
This elevates to the management and leadership thinking on whether to organically develop products, retire a product line, merge or acquire to bolster existing products against competitive forces.
