User Stories

What are User Stories?

From the Wikipedia entry on User story: "A user story is a software system requirement formulated as one or two sentences in the everyday language of the user."

How to Write User Stories

Try starting with these templates:

  • As a
    Unknown macro: {Role}
    I want
    Unknown macro: {Bugfix/Feature/Functionality}
    so that
    Unknown macro: {Business value}
    .
  • Benefit:
    Unknown macro: {What are the benefits of doing this?}
  • Detriment:
    Unknown macro: {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.

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