The team was having some questions regarding the granularity and estimation of stories, so Bret set up a phone call with Jeff Patton a last week.  Here are two takeaways from that call which have already proved invaluable.

First, after each iteration, do the 3 P's- 1) what is the quality of the Product, 2) Progress- are we moving forward?, and 3) Continually to evaluate the Process that you're using;  if it is not efficient, what would change to make it so?

And secondly, when deciding on what level of quality to implement a story, use the report card metaphor using the A-F grading scale.  For example, if the story were to be done in consecutive iterations, the first release would be a C, second iteration would be a B, and third iteration an A.   Slowly turn up the quality of the story based on your customer feedback.  And, when deciding if a story should be a D or B, find a slightly higher stopping point so that refactoring is minimized.