h1. What are User Stories?

From [the Wikipedia entry on User story|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_story]: "A user story is a software system requirement formulated as one or two sentences in the everyday language of the user."


h1. How to Write User Stories

Try starting with these templates:
* As a {Role} I want {Bugfix/Feature/Functionality} so that {Business value}.
* Benefit: {What are the benefits of doing this?}
* Detriment: {What if I don't do this?}

For example:
* As a developer I want to create a logging framework so that I can have a central point to configure logging.
* Benefit: Decreases maintenance cycles and allows for easier debugging saving around 50-70% dev time per issue.
* Detriment:  Logging will have to be ad hoc and will not be as full featured increasing remedy time on production issues.


h1. More Info
* [inspiration for templates|http://codebetter.com/blogs/david_laribee/archive/2007/10/02/stories-and-aspects.aspx]
* [Dan North on Behavior Driven Development|http://dannorth.net/introducing-bdd] (search for "story template" for relevant info)