This is a quick presentation to give an overview of what user stories are, why we use them in agile, and what makes a good user story. It is meant encourage discussion around current or perceived struggles with using user stories and include some practice time working through examples of user stories.

1. As a <user role>,
I want <goal>,
So that <reason>.
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User Stories
OneAmerica BACoP
October 29, 2013

2. Agenda
• What is a user story?
• Why do we use user stories?
• What makes a good user story?
• How to split user stories
• Practice
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3. Incremental
Calls for a fully formed
idea at the beginning.
* Mona Lisa example taken from Jeff Patton’s presentation.
http://www.agileproductdesign.com/
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4. Iterative
Woman in
pastoral
setting
Iterating allows you to
move from vague idea to
realization.
* Mona Lisa example taken from Jeff
Patton’s presentation.
http://www.agileproductdesign.com/
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5. What is a User Story?
• Describe a problem or a desired goal from
the perspective of a user.
• The 3 C’s
• Card
• Conversation
• Confirmation
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As a user role,
I want goal,
So that reason.
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6. Why User Stories?
• Encourage conversations and shared
understanding
• Encourages incremental development, start vague,
add more detail when needed
• Shifts the focus from features and functions to
user problems and goals
• Avoids
“that’s not what I wanted”
“but that’s what the requirements said”
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7. Why User Stories?
• I didn’t say she stole my money.
• I didn’t say she stole my money.
• I didn’t say she stole my money.
• I didn’t say she stole my money.
• I didn’t say she stole my money.
• I didn’t say she stole my money.
• I didn’t say she stole my money.
• I didn’t say she stole my money.
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8. Good User Stories
• The text written on the card is less
important than the conversations that we
have.
• You should have to discuss a user story
before it gets into a sprint...often multiple
times.
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9. INVEST
• Independent
• Negotiable
• Valuable
• Estimable
• Small
• Testable
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10. Clear, Feasible, Testable
• Clear
•
•
Team has shared understanding
•
•
Can be completed in a sprint (ideally a few days)
•
There is an effective way to determine if the functionality works
as expected
•
Acceptance Criteria is defined
Agreement on estimate is one indicator
• Feasible
Don’t forget your Doneness Criteria
• Testable
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11. Examples
Post Resume
Larry wants to post his resume on the job board so
that recruiters and hiring managers will be able to
find his resume in searches for open positions.
* Information from resume should be indexed in standard fields
* Larry should be able to manually enter his resume details.
* Larry should be able to upload his resume in any standard
format and the system should extract the information for the
appropriate fields.
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12. Examples
View Suggested Jobs
Larry should be able to easily view jobs that match the
information in his resume so that he can quickly find
jobs for which he may be a good candidate.
* Jobs should be sorted with the best match at the top of the list
* This list should be automatically displayed af ter Larry initially
completes his resume
* This list should be accessible with a single click from both the
home page, the user’s profile, and the resume page
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13. Splitting Stories
• The point is to get feedback...
• Must be demonstrable
• Needs to be a complete slice
• Still needs to meet Doneness Criteria
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14. Clues for Splitting
• Acceptance Criteria
• Variation/States
• User Role
• Complexity/Level of Detail
• Security/Permissions
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15. Richard Lawrence’s
Patterns
• Workflow Steps
• Business Rule Variations
• Major Effort
• Simple/Complex
• Variations in Data
• Data Entry Method
• Defer Performance
• Operations (CRUD)
• Break Out a Spike
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16. Practice
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17. Contact Info
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