Your user stories could be better

(and why you should care)

Elliot Susel, Agile Project Manager

Agile embraces change…

but why change what you could have done correctly the first time?

Why care

Ideal:• Insights• Market conditions

Solution: Write better stories

Non-Ideal:• Misunderstood feature requirements• Misunderstood feature motivation

Sources of ChangeW

hy care

That sounds nice…

But how do we write better stories?

Better Stories

Would a 13-year old understand?

If not, replace terminology with simple wording

Better Stories

“As a salesman, I want to get ABC data from XYZ system so that I can

view reports”

What the heck does that mean?

Sample(Yes, this actually happened)

Better Stories

Customer DataA history of customer purchases

ABC data from XYZ systemCustomer Data

ABC data from XYZ system

Clarify FeatureBetter Stories

Clarify Motivation

Identify relevant customersIdentify customers that I want to contact

View reportsIdentify relevant customers

View reports

Better Stories

“As a salesman, I want to get ABC data from XYZ system so that I can view reports”

->As a salesman, I want a history of customer

purchases so that I can identify customers that I want to contact

Translation

Notice a difference?

Better Stories

Because the story was simple…

we were able to innovate!

Better

Delivery

Major Cost Savings

100+ pointsAdditional development in XYZ system

->

30 points

Better

Delivery

Questions?

elliot.susel@gmail.com

online presence:about.me/ElliotSusel