Estimating User Stories
User stories are the smallest pieces of functionality that are added to a product. Since the developer role is responsible for creating the code for user stories to work, they need to be aware of the user stories and they should be included in the user story planning and estimation process.
What is a User Story?
Before looking at developer influence on user stories, it is important to know what a user story is. In general, a user story is a short description of a function that stakeholders need the software product to do. It is not at all technical, it is purely functional. In practice, user stories represent small but distinct pieces that must be added to the product. Every individual user story consists of an action that can be performed and tested on its own.
A good way to understand what user stories are is to compare them to tasks. Where tasks are individual pieces of work that must be done, the user story refers to the feature that results from this work. Each task is assigned to only one team member, but user stories may require several team members across multiple roles. Any user story may require multiple tasks to be completed. Tasks come from the Scrum team’s perspective, while user stories come from the perspective of the stakeholders.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: