Thanks for this feedback, too, Chris.

I changed the first item to “task” as you suggested. I’ve wrestled with the whole issue of what to call an agile unit of work. I’m generally calling it a “user story or feature.” I’m reluctant to take a position that you *must* use stories to do agile plans so I’m using the more generic “user story or feature.”  Scrum, for example, lets you put anything you want on the product backlog and it’s still agile. It’s a bit easier if it’s mostly stories but that’s up to the team. I contemplated including a chapter on user stories near the beginning but settled instead for introducing them in chapter 2 and giving them a page or two of description there. Do you (or anyone) have an opinion about whether that’s adequate or too much or too little coverage of user stories as the preferred unit of work and planning on agile projects?

Thanks again for reading,

1.  In "Lateness is Passed Down the Schedule", you use the word "task"
to describe the activities.  In Fig 1.3, you use the word "story."  It
seems you should use the "task" in the figure.  "Story" was not
introduced previously.  Moreover, since you are talking about
traditional plans in this chapter, consider postponing using "story"
until you get to the agile approach.  See comment 3 for a related
issue.

2.  In "Multi-tasking," you may want to add a comma beween the "and"
and the "if" in the following sentence:

"We're rarely blocked on more than one task at a time and if
working on three or more concurrent tasks, the context-switching time
becomes a much more tangible cost and burden."

3.  Question 1.1 presents "stories."  Since (I think) there was no
mention of stories in the chapter (except for Fig 1.3), consider
moving this question to another chapter.  That chapter should be one
in which you talk about what stories are, why you should use them, how
they can make activities more independent, and how they can aid agile
planning.  Hence, you will have set up the context for question 1.1,
hopefully without having rewritten your User Stories book.  If nothing
else, question 1.1 should come after your first official use of the
term "story."

4.  Question 1.2 refers to the Central Limit Theorem.  Most of your
readers probably understand statistics, but consider having an
appendix that describes the statistics you use in the book.  If
nothing else, you may want a footnote that describes the Central Limit
Theorem and points to where the reader could get more information.
Also, is there context for the Central Limit Theorem in the chapter?

Chris