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User Stories<br />- Sunil Kumar<br />

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Agenda<br />What is the need for user stories?<br />What is a story?<br />Why story?<br />What is criteria for a good story?<br />What are not stories?<br />Prerequisite? Knowledge of Scrum and it’s terms<br />

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What problems do user stories address?<br />(mis)Communication!<br />

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Between?<br />Those who want the software<br />Those who build the software<br />

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Balance is critical<br />

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Business side dominates?<br />

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Developers dominate?<br />

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Resource allocation<br />Need to work together to make it a shared problem.<br />

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Developers Responsibility of resource allocation!<br />May trade quality for additional features<br />May only partially implement the feature<br />May solely take decisions that should involve business side<br />

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Only business shoulders the responsibility<br />Lengthy upfront requirements negotiation and signoff<br />Features are dropped as the deadline nears<br />

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We cannot predict a software schedule!<br />

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As users see software, they come up with new ideas<br />

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Too many intangibles!<br />

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Developers have hard time estimating!<br />

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So what do we do?<br />

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Make decisions on information often<br />

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Spread the decision-making across the project<br />

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This is where user stories come in<br />

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What are stories? 3C<br />

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Story Card<br />Written on Note cards<br />Should have estimates, notes etc<br />No jargon<br />Written in direct speech<br />

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Conversation!<br />Details behind the story<br />Emerges when team talks with Product owner, customer / customer proxy<br />

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Confirmation<br />Acceptance tests<br />

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Example of Story<br /><ul><li>A user can search for jobs by attributes like location, salary range, job title, company name, and the date the job was posted

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A user can view information about each job that is matched by a search

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A user can view detailed information about a company that has posted a job</li></li></ul><li>More Samples!<br />

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Conversation?<br />

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What is an Epic?<br />A user can search for a job<br />A company can post job openings<br />

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Theme?<br />

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Why write Stories?<br />

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Words are imprecise!<br />Main dish comes with soup or salad and bread<br />(Soup or salad) and Bread?<br />(Soup) or (Salad and bread)?<br />The User can enter a name. it can be 127 characters<br />Must the user enter a name?<br />Can it be other than 127 chars?<br />

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Words are imprecise contd…<br />The system should prominently display a warning message whenever the user enter invalid data<br />What does should mean?<br />What does prominently display mean?<br />Is invalid data defined elsewhere?<br />

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Stories shift the focus from writing to talking<br />“You built what I asked for, but it’s not what I need”<br />

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Stories are equally understandable by developers and customers<br />

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Support iterative development<br />

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Stories are right size for planning<br />

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Stories support participatory design<br />

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Stories emphasize user’s goals not system attributes<br />What are we building?<br />The product shall have a gas engine<br />The product shall have four wheels<br />The product shall have rubber tyre mounted to each wheel<br />The product shall have a steering wheel<br />The product shall have a steel body<br />

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What if we had stories instead?<br />

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Don’t forget the purpose<br />The story text we write on cards is less important than the conversations we have<br />

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User Story Template<br />“As a &lt;Some Role&gt;<br />I want &lt;Some Need&gt;<br />So that &lt;Some Benefit&gt;”<br />

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A “real” Story card<br />As an &lt;unregistered user of <br />[an online game]&gt;<br /> I want &lt;to setup a trial team&gt;<br />So that &lt;I can try the game without signing up&gt;<br />

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Advantages of “As a user, I want” user story template<br />With “I want” phrase, person more closely identifies with stories and person’s mind goes instantly to imagining as he or she is such-and-such.<br />Helps in prioritizing story. The product owner is forced to understand the feature, benefits and value (“so that” phrase)<br />This format is a best practice towards executable requirements and a domain specific language<br />

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What is criteria for good story?<br />Independent<br />Negotiable<br />Valuable to users or customers<br />Estimable<br />Small<br />Testable<br />

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Independent<br />Introduce as little dependencies as possible<br />Break up work in vertical layers<br />Dependent stories should not be done in same sprint<br />

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Independent<br /><ul><li>BAD

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Company can pay for a job posting with a visa card

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Company can pay for a job posting with a master card

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Company can pay for a job posting with an American Express

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Good

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Company can pay for a job posting with a credit card

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Also good

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Company can pay for a job posting with one type of a credit card

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Company can pay for a job posting with two additional types of credit cards</li></li></ul><li>Negotiable<br />Not contracts<br />Describe what, not how<br />Should be imprecise and open for negotiation<br />Should encourage conversation<br />Not requirements, leads to requirements<br />

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Valuable<br />If we can’t specify value of a story we probably don’t know enough about it<br />

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Valuable to purchasers or users<br /><ul><li>Throughout the development process, the development team will produce documentation suitable for an ISO 9001 audit. -- purchaser

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Not

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All connections to the database are through a connection pool

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All error handling and logging is done through a set of common classes.

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If there’s a technical story put it in terms the business can understand

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Up to fifty users should be able to use the application with a five-user database license

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All errors are presented to the user and logged in a consistent manner.</li></li></ul><li>Estimable*<br />“Make login button look ‘cool’” is not estimable<br />If we can’t estimate a story we cant commit to it<br /><ul><li>Lack domain knowledge

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Lack technical knowledge

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Story is too big</li></ul>* Yes, it is a word!<br />

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Small<br />Size does matter<br />A user can plan a vacation (EPIC)<br />Based on team and capabilities and technology in use.<br />Allows more granular tracking of progress<br />Easier to estimate (less error prone)<br />

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Testable<br />If you can’t test it, how do you know<br />It’s done?<br />It’s done right?<br />Should have done criteria<br />Business criteria<br />Technical Debt<br />Cross-cutting concerns<br />Regression failures allowable?<br />

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Testable<br /><ul><li>User must find the software easy to use.

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A novice user is able to complete common workflows without training

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A user must not have to wait long for a screen to appear.

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New screens appear within two seconds in 95% of all cases.

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Strive for 99% automation

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Automate on the code not just the UI.

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Fit is good (Fitnesse)

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NUnit is good</li></li></ul><li>What are not stories?<br />

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Screen mockup (not story)<br />

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Use case (not story)<br />

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UML diagrams (not story)<br />

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Specification (not story)<br />

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Some guideline for story writing<br />

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Include user roles in stories<br /><ul><li>as a (role) I want (function) because (business value)</li></li></ul><li>Write for one user<br /><ul><li>Job seeker can remove a resume

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Job seeker can remove her own resume</li></li></ul><li>Write in active voice<br /><ul><li>Bad

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A resume can be posted by a job seeker

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Good

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A job seeker can post a resume</li></li></ul><li>Customer writes the story<br /><ul><li>Not developer

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But they can suggest

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Which maybe is write them then get signoff

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Offer advice

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In the end the customer has to prioritize them so they need to know the language on the card fully.</li></li></ul><li>Don’t number the cards<br /><ul><li>Pointless over head

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You’ll be shredding cards and creating cards often</li></li></ul><li>Don’t forget the purpose<br /><ul><li>Reminder about the requirements not the document of the requirements.

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Don’t replace the conversation by adding the detail.</li></li></ul><li>References<br />http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/presentations/103-user-stories<br />http://www.slideshare.net/guest446c0/user-stories-1015064<br />http://www.danube.com/webinars<br />All images collected through google<br />

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Questions?<br />