User stories are one of the most visible artefacts of most agile methods and have generated large quantities of expert advice. In my experience, much of that advice is often misinterpreted. In this session, we’ll explore several classic pieces of advice, to see how misunderstandings can lead to bad outcomes, despite the best intentions. The advice we’ll look at relates to: – an acronym: INVEST, created by Bill Wake – a technique: relative estimation (as used in Planning Poker, created by James Grenning) – a template: Connextra (As-A/I-Want/So-That), created by Rachel Davies You’ll leave with a clearer appreciation of user stories and an understanding of just how context-sensitive most advice is.