Tag: example

User stories with examples and a template
Atlassian | Undated

User stories are development tasks often expressed as “persona + need + purpose.” 

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.
A user story is an informal, general explanation of a software feature written from the perspective of the end user or customer.

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.

Why create user stories?
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 a small challenge and a small win, driving momentum.

How to write user stories
Consider the following when writing user stories:
Definition of “done” — The story is generally “done” when the user can complete the outlined task, but make sure to define what that is.
Outline subtasks or tasks — Decide which specific steps need to be completed and who is responsible for each of them.
User personas — For whom? If there are multiple end users, consider making multiple stories.
Ordered Steps — Write a story for each step in a larger process.
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.
Time — Time is a touchy subject. Many development teams avoid discussions of time altogether, relying instead on their estimation frameworks. Since stories should be completable 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.
Once the user stories are clearly defined, make sure they are visible for the entire team.

User story template and examples
“As a [persona], I [want to], [so that].”
Breaking this down:
“As a [persona]“: Who are we building this for? We’re not just after a job title, we’re after the persona of the person. Max. Our team should have a shared understanding of who Max is. We’ve hopefully interviewed plenty of Max’s. We understand how that person works, how they think and what they feel. We have empathy for Max.
“Wants to”: Here we’re describing their intent — not the features they use. What is it they’re actually trying to achieve? This statement should be implementation free — if you’re describing any part of the UI and not what the user goal is you’re missing the point.
“So that”: how does their immediate desire to do something this fit into their bigger picture? What’s the overall benefit they’re trying to achieve? What is the big problem that needs solving?

Author = Max Rehkopf

URL = https://www.atlassian.com/agile/project-management/user-stories