How Do You Create a Good User Story?
Valuable. All good user stories should have some business value. The customer is always at the forefront of agile so if there is no value for the customer, then why is it in there? Collaboration is important here. Scrum Masters should work with product owners to ensure the story has some business value.
Estimable. User stories should be scaled so that they are not too big or too small. Being able to properly estimate how long something will take is important and scrum teams should always have enough information to do so properly. Scrum Masters can help frame the scope so that user stories are properly scaled to include the proper information needed to estimate the story. They can also help define terms and clarify information that is needed so that the Team has the proper knowledge to estimate the story.
Small. A user story should always be small and be able to be completed in within the iteration. Scrum Masters can help determine if a story is small enough by looking at how long it will take to complete. Scrum Masters should know their developmental team well and knows what they are capable of. So if members of the development team are not available when creating a user story, Scrum Masters can help define the scope so it is small enough for the development team to handle.
Testable. This means the acceptance criteria should be clearly defined so that it can be tested. Even if there isn’t a test for it yet, it should still be able to be tested in principle. Scrum Masters can collaborate with product owners and team members so that user stories are clearly defined.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: