A team creates a user story for a full calendar feature. The PO, BA, UX, and accessibility SME add pages of detail so developers have everything they need.
When developers see the ticket, they know it’s far too big. It needs splitting—but rewriting all that detail feels time‑consuming, inconvenient, and no one volunteers to do it.
So the team decides to work on the giant story as-is and “figure out the rest later.”
What ends up happening…
- No incremental value is delivered. The story can’t be finished in one sprint.
- One developer gets stuck working on it the whole time.
- No one else can help because the work isn’t split and isn’t shareable.
Does this sound familiar?
Avoiding the discomfort of splitting stories upfront almost always creates bigger delivery problems later.