Breaking Down the Product Backlog
One could think of the product backlog as a large repository of work that can be divided into smaller and smaller parts. There’s the overarching statement of what the product is, broken down into what its objectives are, and then further split into what functionalities it has.
The granularity of a feature will vary from one organization to the other. Some organizations use themes or value streams to group features together. Some organizations come up with epics that cover different focus areas, and then map user stories that complete these epics. The Scrum team and the stakeholders need to work together on deciding how to categorize user stories into epics and epics into themes.
User Stories
User stories note the agreements between the stakeholders and the Scrum team and detail what actions need to take place within the product. A popular template used for writing user stories are:
As a (type of user), I want to (action here) so that (reason or intended output here).
This statement encapsulates what the Scrum team needs to cover when developing the product: who the user is, what they want to do, and why they want to do it, as well as the value it will give to them.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: