That cartoon has been around quite a while and I still chuckle every time I see it. At my previous job, I had requirements training with Karl Weigers (who wrote the "Software Requirements" book from Microsoft Press). I'm not a fan of BDUF unless you've only got one chance to succeed, but it was invaluable as a guide for learning how to communicate requirements. So if you're writing stories and practicing agile, are you being clear and concise?
Absolutely. Each time I see it, i laugh a lot. :) In fact, I have a startup company and basicly i follow agile practices mainly beacuse of resource constraints and productivity. I'll write SRS document for my project course in Phd. So, I needed to revise it. I generally emphasis on product rather than documentation. When I'm writing documentation, I make it as simple as possible.
I thought the entire point of the Agile movement was that such a requirements spec was, in essence, impossible for precisely the reasons shown in that cartoon?
That was my understanding or, at the least, my understanding of how Agile has been sold.
If you write enough user stories it seems that eventually you have an SRS.
Absolutely. For this reason, they said: "Working software over comprehensive documentation" in Agile manifesto. However, you cannot develop a product without knowing your requirements. You have some kind of requirements or features spec in any methodology.