A key component of agile software development is putting people first, and user-stories put actual end-users at the centre of the conversation. Stories use non-technical language to provide context for the development team and their efforts. After reading a user story, the team knows why they are building what they're building and what value it creates.
User stories are one of the core components of an agile program. They help provide a user-focused framework for daily work — which drives collaboration, creativity, and a better product overall.
What Are Agile User Stories?
A user story is the smallest unit of work in an agile framework. It’s an end goal, not a feature, expressed from the software user’s perspective.
The purpose of a user story is to articulate how a piece of work will deliver a particular value back to the customer. Note that "customers" don't have to be external end-users in the traditional sense, they can also be internal customers or colleagues within your organization who depend on your team.
User stories are a few sentences in simple language that outline the desired outcome. They don't go into detail. Requirements are added later, once agreed upon by the team.
Stories fit neatly into agile frameworks like scrum and kanban. In scrum, user stories are added to sprints and “burned down” over the duration of the sprint. Kanban teams pull user stories into their backlog and run them through their workflow. It’s this work on user stories that help scrum teams get better at estimation and sprint planning, leading to more accurate forecasting and greater agility. Thanks to stories, kanban teams learn how to manage work-in-progress (WIP) and can further refine their workflows.
User stories are also the building blocks of larger agile frameworks like epics and initiatives. Epics are large work items broken down into a set of stories, and multiple epics comprise an initiative. These larger structures ensure that the day to day work of the development team (on stores) contributes to the organizational goals built into epics and initiatives.
Why Create User Stories?
For development teams new to agile, user stories sometimes seem like an added step. Why not just break the big project into a series of steps and get on with it? But stories give the team important context and associate tasks with the value those tasks bring. User stories serve a number of key benefits:
Stories keep the focus on the user. A To-Do list keeps the team focused on tasks that need to be checked off, but a collection of stories keeps the team focused on solving problems for real users.
Stories enable collaboration. With the end goal defined, the team can work together to decide how best to serve the user and meet that goal.
Stories drive creative solutions. Stories encourage the team to think critically and creatively about how to best solve for an end goal.
Stories create momentum. With each passing story, the development team enjoys small challenges and a small win, driving momentum.
Working with User Stories
Once a story has been written, it’s time to integrate it into your workflow. Generally, a story is written by the product owner, product manager, or program manager and submitted for review. During a sprint or iteration planning meeting, the team decides what stories they’ll tackle that sprint. Teams now discuss the requirements and functionality that each user story requires. This is an opportunity to get technical and creative in the team’s implementation of the story. Once agreed upon, these requirements are added to the story.
Another common step in this meeting is to score the stories based on their complexity or time to completion. Teams use t-shirt sizes, the Fibonacci sequence, or planning poker to make proper estimations. A story should be sized to complete in one sprint, so as the team specs each story, they make sure to break up stories that will go over that completion horizon.
How to Write User Stories
Consider the following when writing user stories:
1. Definition of “Done”: The story is generally “done” when the user can complete the outlined task, but make sure to define what that is.
2. Outline subtasks or tasks: Decide which specific steps need to be completed and who is responsible for each of them.
3. User personas: For Whom? If there are multiple end-users, consider making multiple stories.
4. Ordered Steps: Write a story for each step in a larger process.
5. Listen to feedback: Talk to your users and capture the problem or need in their words. No need to guess at stories when you can source them from your customers.
6. Time: Time is a touchy subject. Many development teams avoid discussions of time altogether, relying instead on their estimation frameworks. Since stories should be completed in one sprint, stories that might take weeks or months to complete should be broken up into smaller stories or should be considered their own epic.
Source: atlassian.com
FAQ's
- Why are user stories important in agile project management?
User stories provide context, clarity, and alignment around user needs, which helps in delivering valuable software features incrementally. They promote customer collaboration and enable teams to respond quickly to changes.
- What are user stories in agile?
User stories are concise descriptions of a feature or requirement from an end-user's perspective. They articulate the user's goal and the value that will be delivered, without going into detailed technical specifications.
- How should user stories be written?
User stories should be written in simple language that captures the user's perspective and desired outcome. They should be short, typically a few sentences, and include acceptance criteria that define when the story is considered complete.
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