User Story

A user story specifies what a user does with a solution and for what purpose.

User stories introduce requirements details in a meaningful way to development stakeholders. A user story typically follows this template:

For example: As a business analyst, I need to create process diagrams so that I can show my understanding of a process to stakeholders.

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What's the Story? (Key Story)

What's the Story? excerpts:

• What’s the Story For?
  • Complete, well-written user stories provide a rich context for designers and developers to understand what a customer does in the scope of the solution. A business analyst rarely reviews a user story itself with customer stakeholders. By the time s/he writes user stories, s/he has shown his/her understanding of the customer requirements.
• Stepping Into User Stories
  • A purposeful architect can express each step as a user story:
• Telling a Story in a Sentence
  • A user story expresses a specific task a user does in the scope of a solution, and for what purpose. Although it’s called a story, it fits in one sentence. The common structure of a user story is:
• A Story’s Outcome Sets Up the Next Story
  • Each user story in a process assumes that the previous story produced its desired outcome. For example, the sales representative reviewing an account’s request for proposal implies s/he received an RFP from an account. Drafting a proposal assumes the sales representative determined the account’s opportunity merits writing a proposal. Story 4 suggests that the sales manager will always recommend changes to the proposal. If the sales manager returns the proposal with no changes, the sales representative can skip Story 4. Story 5 implies that management has approved the proposal, and it is ready to go to the account.
    

Making the Cases for a Solution

Making the Cases for a Solution excerpts:

• The Story of a Use Case
  • On a discovery journey, stakeholders break down complex processes into steps, as shown in Mapping Out Complexity. A [[user story]] describes a process step in one sentence, saying who does what and why. A collection of user stories provides a good overview of a process. See What’s the Story to learn more about user stories.
  • A use case adds details to a user story, guiding the design and development of a solution. These details specify the conditions for the use case, interactions between the user and the system, and the expected outcome.
• A Form-al Comparison
  • A use case expands “performing a task” from the user story to “interacting with the system to produce an outcome or an exception.” It specifies the steps of the interaction and the possible outcomes and exceptions.
    

Coverage: How Much is Enough?

Coverage: How Much is Enough? excerpts:

• The Elements.cloud confessor found him/herself on the path to solution failure. The confession refers to user stories, which describe what a user does with a solution in a specific case, and why. The original user story author did not cover enough of the user needs. In this case, the confessor checked the user stories and presumably asked a lot of critical questions. S/he went back to discover the user needs and rewrote or created new user stories to ensure they covered the project’s scope.