User Stories

Saket Bansal
PMP, PMI-ACP, CSM , ITIL-F
www.iZenBridge.com

User Stories
Epics and Themes
A Good User
Stories
Writing User
Stories

Responsibilities

www.iZenBridge.com

A user story describes functionality that will

be valuable to either a user or purchaser of a
system or software.

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Is
An agreements between customers and team members to
discuss detailed requirements during an iteration
Emphasize verbal rather than written communication.
Right size for planning
Is Not
A Requirement document, requirement needs to be
captured by discussion , if the discussion is not possible
then should be augmented by documentation

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Card
Stories are traditionally written on note cards
The card may be annotated with Notes, Estimates etc.

Conversation
Details behind the story come out during conversations
with the product owner / customer

Confirmation
Acceptance tests confirm a story was coded correctly

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As a (role) I
want
(something) so
that (benefit)

As a
Who wants this piece of functionality
I want
What the user wants
So that
Why the user wants it
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As a Student I want to
take a practice test so
that I know my readiness
for the exam.

As a Student I want to
see how I am doing in
the practice test so that I
can plan my future
study.

As an Exam
Administrator I should
be able to publish new
Exam so that test takers
can take it.

As an Administrator I
should be able to
manage question bank
so that I can retire easy
questions.

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As a Student I want to
take a practice test so
that I know my
readiness for the
exam.
Does system allows user to select a
number of questions
Does system allows user to take test
in multiple sessions
Does system provides facility to time
the exam, is if configurable ?
Do we need to save the test history?

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As a Student I want to
take a practice test so
that I know my
readiness for the
exam.
Verify that test taker can select
questions in multiple of 10 with a
max limit of 100
Verify that register user can do the
test in multiple sessions.
Verify that User can see how he has
performed in test at a later date.

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As a Test taker I can

select the number of
questions so that I get
that many questions
in the test
As a Student I want to
take a practice test so
that I know my
readiness for the exam

As a Test taker I
should be able to hold
the test so then I can
resume it at a later
stage
As a Test taker I want
to save my test results
so that I can review
them at a later date
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User Stories
Epics and Themes
A Good User
Stories
Writing User
Stories

Responsibilities

www.iZenBridge.com

11

Epic , Is a large User Story,

They are too big to
implement in a single
iteration and therefore they
need to be disaggregated
into smaller user stories at
some point
Theme : Theme is a set of
related user stories that
may be combined together
and treated as a single
entity for either estimating
or release planning.

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In some cases epic may equal a theme. However we write

an epic as a placeholder for big features we want to add
someday , while themes serve the purpose of grouping
together a set of related stories
Epics have come from top-down planning while themes are
created bottom.
There is no hierarchy relation between Theme and Epic
Epics are usually bigger than the themes , but in some
cases theme may have more than one epic in it.

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As a Job Seeker I
should be able to
search for a job so
that I can find a
suitable match

As a Job Seeker I
should be able to
search for jobs by
keywords and location
so that I can find the
suitable match

As a Job Seeker I
should be able to view
information about each
job that is matched by
a search so that I can
get details of listed Job
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As a Head PMO, I
would like to see list
of projects which are
behind schedule so
that I can take
corrective actions

As a PMO Head, I
would like to review
performance of ongoing
projects so that I can
take corrective actions

Epic

As a PMO Head, I
would like to review
project performance
against time so that I
can take corrective
actions
As a PMO Head, I
would like to review
Project performance
against budget so that I
can take corrective
actions

Epic

As a Head PMO, I
would like to see list if
upcoming milestones
in any running
projects so that I
ensure resources on
time.
As a Head PMO, I
would like to see list
of projects which has
missed last 3
milestone dates so
that I can identify the
risky projects.

User
Story
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A Job Seeker can fill out a

resume form.

Technical Division
Information on a resume
form is written to the
database.

A Job Seeker can

post a resume

A Job Seeker can submit

a resume that includes
only basic information
such as name, address,
education history

Slice the cake

Epic

A Job Seeker can submit

a resume that includes all
information an employer
may want to see.

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Compound Story

An epic that
comprises multiple
shorter stories

Complex Story

Inherently large and

cannot easily be
disaggregated

Epic

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Epic :
Compound
Story

Splitting across data

boundaries

Split along the

boundaries of the data
supported by the story.

Splitting on
Operational
Boundaries

Based on the
operations that are
performed within the
story.

Removing Cross
Cutting Concern

Creating two versions of

the story: one with and
one without support for
the cross-cutting
concern.

Dont meet
performance
constraints

Separate the functional

and nonfunctional
aspects

Split Stories of Mixed

Priority

Split into smaller

stories if the smaller
stories have different
priorities

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Investigation

Research and
determine the
feasibility
(TimeBoxed Spike)

Development

Add that
functionality to the
product. (User Story)

Epic : Complex
Story

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User Stories
Epics and Themes
A Good User
Stories
Writing User Stories

Responsibilities

www.iZenBridge.com

20

Independent
Avoid Introducing dependencies between stories
Negotiable
Stories are negotiable. They are not written contracts or requirements
Valuable to users or customers
The story must be valued by the users / Purchaser
Estimatable
Developers should be able to estimate it.
Small
Stories should be rightly sized , Too large or too small cannot be used
in planning.
Testable
Stories must be written so as to be testable. Successfully passing its
tests proves that a story has been successfully developed.

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Is a Closed story
Has User Role
Written for One user
Does not focus too much on the UI
Has acceptance tests

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User Stories
Epics and Themes
A Good User
Stories
Writing User
Stories

Responsibilities

www.iZenBridge.com

23

Identify Initial asset of

User Roles

Set of User Roles

Identify actions /
interactions User
Persona or role can have
with system

Identify User Personas

for important User
Roles , also identify
Extreme Characters
User Personas
Extreme Characters

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Epic Stories

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A user role is a collection of defining attributes that

characterize a group of users and their interactions with the
system.
Its an aggregate individual user
Role Modelling Steps
Brainstorm set of user roles relevant for our system
Organize and consolidate roles
Refine the roles

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Ajay
Deals in Sr. Positions
Specialized in Law Firms recruitment
Sally
Deals in Project Management
Specialized in IT Projects Managers
Sunita
Deals in Entry level Recruitment
Specialized in call Center Recruitment

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For some of the important user roles

we should create a persona . A
persona is an imaginary
representation of a user role.

Name
Picture
Education & Experience
Likes / Dislikes
Demographic Information
Not to map to the real user

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Users with exaggerated

personalities may lead to
new stories

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Includes

developers , users ,
product customers, product
owner , anyone who can
contribute
Should be conducted prior to
release planning
Use Cards
Discussion remain at a high
level

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Low Fidelity Prototype , a quick of cheap way to get feedback.

Information displayed
Functions available
Relative priorities of the information
The rules for displaying certain kinds of information
The effect of different scenarios on the display

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User Stories
Epics and Themes
A Good User
Stories
Writing User
Stories
Responsibilities

www.iZenBridge.com

32

www.iZenBridge.com

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Identify appropriate user roles.

Participate in the process of identifying user roles and
personas.
Write Stories.
When writing stories ensure that each story can be
associated with at least one user role or persona.
If you need help in writing the stories, you are responsible for
scheduling and running story-writing workshops.

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Participate in the process of identifying user roles and

personas.
Participate in Writing Stories.

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Writing the acceptance tests.

Write tests as many which adds value and clarification to the
story.
Executing the acceptance tests.

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 Responsible for automating the execution of acceptance

tests if required
Responsible for thinking about additional acceptance tests
Responsible for unit testing the code so that acceptance
tests do not need to be specified for all the minutiae of a
story

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Recapitulation

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What are the three C's of User Stories

Card , Conversation and Confirmation
What is Epic
A large User Story, too big to
implement in a single iteration
What are the two types of epics?
Compound Story
And Complex Story
Which type of epic stories usually
requires spikes?
Complex Story

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What is the full Form of INVEST

Independent , Negotiable,
Valuable, Estimatable , Small
Testable

We identify User Personas for ....

Some of the important User Roles.
Identifying Extreme Character helps in

Identifying new stories

Who identifies the acceptance criteria
of User Stories
Product Owner or On Site Customer

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User Stories
Epics and Themes
A Good User
Stories
Writing User
Stories
Responsibilities

www.iZenBridge.com

42

User Stories Applied for Agile software

Development-Mike Cohn
Images are taken from Microsoft Free
Clipart

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