Are you on a sinking ship? If your agile project is struggling to stay above water, it’s possible you have holes in your user stories! Do a quick user story inspection. Do you see any of these warning signs?
1. Inside Out User Stories: Do your user stories focus inside out (technology, then user) or outside in (user then technology)? When I coach agile teams, I often see user stories organized by technology component instead of user value. A piece of technology, all by itself, does not typically provide value to the user, especially in our complex integrated environments.
If applications (a.k.a. stand-alone systems or components of systems) are integrated, then user stories should be integrated. Why? It’s all about user value! When a user makes an online purchase, they do not see separate applications. They browse items, make a purchase, pay, and receive items. Users do not get value from the web page alone, the product database alone, or the payment processor alone — the user gets value from the integrated experience. Value from a user perspective comes from integrated user stories vs. single applications.
2. User Stories Focus on Project Team Tasks: Again, this approach is not user-focused, it’s development team-focused. When user stories or story sets describe a list of team tasks, they lose their power. If your user stories have names like “code profile page” or “write SQL for DB call” or “map data for credit card validation,” your project might be in trouble.
Teams need to operate from an outside in perspective–focusing on the user and what they need. Team tasks are different than user stories. They may be linked to one another to keep organized, but these team tasks are NOT the user stories.
3. Huge User Stories: If your user stories cannot be developed in the planned iteration, they are too big. SLICE THEM! But be careful how you slice them. Take note of warning signs #1 and #2–slice user stories by value, not by team tasks or applications. The entire user experience and all exceptions do not need to be in the same story. For example: A story about creating a user profile can be sliced into multiple stories. Slice them based on the valuable pieces of data that make up the profile, instead of the application components the profile touches.