The document provides guidance on writing effective agile user stories. It discusses: 1) The roles of the product owner, technical analyst, functional analyst, and business analyst in creating and maintaining the product backlog. 2) Attributes of well-written user stories, including being independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, and testable (INVEST). 3) Components of a user story including the title, description using a template, business priority, complexity estimate, and acceptance criteria. 4) Prioritization techniques like MoSCoW and stack ranking based on business priority, complexity, and dependencies.

1. Writing Great Agile User Stories
V. Lee Henson CST ~ @AgileDad
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3. V. Lee Henson CST
✤ Certified Scrum Trainer
✤ Project Management Professional
✤ PMI- Agile Certified Practitioner
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✤ Inventor of Rapid Release Planning
✤ Information Technology / Psychology
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4. The Agile Manifesto
We are uncovering better ways of developing software
by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals & Interactions over processes & tools
Working software over comprehensive
documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
That is , while there is value in the items on the right,
we value the items on the left more.
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5. Agile vs. Plan Driven
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6. Scrum vs. Waterfall
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7. Writing Great Stories
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8. Product Owner:
✤ Responsible for: Creation and
maintenance of a stack ranked
product backlog.
✤ Gathering of customer, business,
and technical requirements and
filtering them down to a single
product backlog.
✤ Full understanding of the product
and the process.
✤ Maintaining upward visibility.
✤ Representation of customer and or
sponsor to the end team
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9. Agile Analysts:
✤ There are 3 types of analysts to assist the product owner in creation
and maintenance of the product backlog:
✤ 1) Technical Analyst - This analyst understands the way that the
current product is built and can assist in determining technological
feasibility of future enhancements.
✤ 2) Functional Analyst - This analyst knows exactly how the current
product works and understands the direction in which the business
hopes to take the future of the product. This analyst is also typically
very savvy about how end users typically use the product.
✤ 3) Business Analyst - This analyst has a deep understanding of the
customers wants, needs, and desires. They often negotiate with the
business to get features into the product that the customer will
actually use.
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10. Creating a Product Backlog
✤ The product backlog is defined by ✤ The end result will be consumed by
taking a breakdown of the product the delivery team and should be
roadmap based on the product or easy to fit inside sprint boundaries.
project and breaking down the
individual nodes of the roadmap ✤ Various analysts often have input
into reasonably sized work items. into the product backlog.
✤ Some of the ideas will naturally ✤ The product backlog is a work in
percolate to the top of the backlog progress and is expected to change
based on chronological sequencing. over time.
✤ The backlog should be reviewed ✤ The backlog will need to be
from both the business and the consistently groomed in order to
customer perspective in order to maintain validity.
achieve true rank order.
✤ The ScrumMaster can be a great
help in assisting with backlog
management.
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11. The 3 C’s of a Good User Story:
✤ 1) The Card - The topic of the backlog item, the high level
description of the desired system behavior.
✤ 2) The Conversation - Detailed requirements are only
discovered after the backlog item has been pulled into a sprint.
This is a dialog between the product owner and the
development team.
✤ 3) The Confirmation - Criteria that insures the backlog item
was completed to the specifications of the product owner. The
customer will evaluate the competed backlog item against the
acceptance criteria, and if all tests pass, approve the backlog
item by the end of the sprint.
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12. The Index Card - Part 1 of 6
Title - The title should be 10 words or less.
Description- As a ________
I would like to ______________________________
so that ______________________________.
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13. Writing a Good User Story
Description Template:
✤ As a _________________________ I would like to
__________________ so that ________________________________.
✤ Example: As a newly Certified ScrumMaster, I would like to log
in to the Scrum Alliance so that I can rate my instructor.
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14. INVEST - Attributes of a Good Backlog
Item
Independent Estimable
Avoid dependencies with other stories Enough detail should be listed to allow the team to estimate
Write stories to establish foundation The team will encounter problems estimating if the story is too
big, if insufficient information is provided, or if there is a lack of
Combine stories if possible to deliver in a single iteration domain knowledge
Negotiable Sized Appropriately
Stories are not a contract Each story should be small enough to be completed in a single
iteration
Too much detail up front gives the impression that more
discussion on the story is not necessary Small detailed stories for the near future
Not every story must be negotiable, constraints may exist that Larger stories are okay if planned further out (Epics)
prevent it
Valuable Testable
Each story should show value to the Users, Customers, and Acceptance criteria stated in customer terms
Stakeholders
Automate whenever possible
All team members should demand clear acceptance criteria
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15. Understanding Roles:
✤ Different types of end users
may interact with the system
differently.
✤ Each role may have many
different personas that will
exhibit different behaviors
and use the same system in
a very different way.
✤ Roles help us define broad
stroke acceptance criteria
that should be applied
globally within a system.
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16. Understanding Personas
✤ Defining who more specifically
will benefit from what you are
building helps drive added value.
✤ This helps teams focus on the
20% of the features that are used
most of the time.
✤ Using personas also helps the
team consume backlog items
with much lighter documentation
✤ Most organizations create a
handful of most commonly used
personas to assist the team in
building the product.
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17. Product Backlog Design
High
Each Sprint implements ✤ All possible system features
The highest priority features are captured in a stack rank
ordered list called the
Each new feature is product backlog.
Prioritized & added to the stack
Features may be reprioritized
✤ New features can be added
At any time to the backlog at any time.
Features may be removed ✤ Features in the backlog have
At any time
a gross estimate of effort
and or value.
Low
Features
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18. What About Business Priority?
✤ We all know the business has a
3 point ranking scale for priority
of backlog items: High, Really
High, or Really Really High.
✤ The business needs to use tools
to help them understand that
not everything can be of the
highest priority.
✤ With the understanding that we
Two websites to assist with priority: would not be doing the work if it
http://dotmocracy.org were not important, which items
http://www.innovationgames.com have the greatest urgency? Can
we arrange them into High,
Medium, and Low categories?
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19. The Index Card - Part 2 of 6
Business Priority
H-M-L Title - The title should be 10 words or less.
Description- As a ________
I would like to ______________________________
so that ______________________________.
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20. Time vs. Relative Complexity
✤ Let’s paint the room!
✤ How many hours will it take?
✤ Why all of the different answers?
✤ Have any of you painted before?
✤ Compared to something else
you have painted, would it be
easier to determine how difficult
it would be to paint the room?
✤ Is it easier to reach consensus?
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21. Planning Poker - Does It Work?
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22. Let’s Use a T-Shirt Size...
✤ Smaller Than XS = a Task.
✤ Extra Small = 1
✤ Small = 2
✤ Medium = 3
✤ Large = 5
✤ Extra Large = 8
✤ Larger than XL = an Epic
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23. The Index Card - Part 3 of 6
Business Priority
H-M-L Title - The title should be 10 words or less.
Description- As a ________
I would like to ______________________________
so that ______________________________.
XS - S- M
- L - XL
PO T-Shirt Size
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24. Understanding MoSCoW:
✤ MoSCoW = more than a Russian Capital
✤ Must Have
✤ Should Have
✤ Could Have
✤ Would Like
✤ Every iteration should have a mix of
the above types of items.
✤ Stake holders LOVE the Would Likes.
✤ The Product Owner drives the product
backlog and creates the rank order
based heavily on the MoSCoW ratings.
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25. The Index Card - Part 4 of 6
Business Priority MoSCoW
H-M-L Title - The title should be 10 words or less. M-S-C-W
Description- As a ________
I would like to ______________________________
so that ______________________________.
XS - S- M
- L - XL
PO T-Shirt Size
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26. The Formula
✤ Here is the formula for correct placement of stack
rank order of your backlog items. Address risk by
performing the items with the highest complexity Must Have High Priority
earlier working towards the lower complexity items
later in the process:
Would Like H-M-L
✤ 1) All Must Have High Priority items should be
considered first and foremost. Must Have Medium
Priority
✤ 2) Be certain to get at least one Would Like in every
sprint. Next should be one Would Like High Priority Must Have Low Priority
item.
✤ 3) Next should be the Must Have Mediums and Must
Should Have H-M-L
Have Lows.
Could Have H-M-L
✤ 4) The Should’s go next from High to Low Priority.
✤ 5) Finally, place the Could’s from Highest to Lowest All states are stack ranked from highest
Priority. to lowest risk unless the velocity of the
Sprint does not afford this as an option.
Team velocity always prevails.
✤ Note: Dependencies trump priority & moscow rating.
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27. The Index Card - Part 5 of 6
FA BA
H-M-L Title - The title should be 10 words or less. M-S-C-W
Description- As a ________
I would like to ______________________________
so that ______________________________.
XS - S- M
- L - XL
TA
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28. The Index Card - Part 6 of 6
Acceptance Criteria Goes on The Back!
- Thou Shalt & Thou Shalt Nots are listed as bullet points
- These bullet points allow us to for Acceptance Tests
- No work should be executed without acceptance tests
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29. Thank You!
Lee@AgileDad.Com- Twitter @AgileDad - LinkedIn leehenson@gmail.com
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