Writing Good User Stories

The most important responsibility of a product owner is to write user stories.  It requires focus and skill.  The team members are responsible for completing work, but the product owner makes sure the team has work that delivers value to the business.  Today, we continue our series on healthy ownership by looking at some helpful guidelines on how to write better user stories.  

User stores are the bricks that construct your product and deliver value to your organization.  Together as an assemblage, they are the structure for all the agile team's conversations about the work they accomplish.  Good user stories have two principal characteristics: why the story needs execution and, finally, acceptance criteria that explain success.   

I wrote a blog three years ago which explains my technique of writing stories that I teach to others.  Please take a look at it here.  It features a sentence narrative that I then explain what needs to be done and why.  I do not tell the agile team how I want the work done.  It is because the team members are smart enough to develop solutions.  The team will appreciate the trust. 

Next, I encourage you to author acceptance criteria using the Gherkin syntax.  The simple use of the given, when, then narrative makes it easy for quality assurance people to confirm quality and for the developer to do the work.  Clear acceptance criteria in a given, when, then format avoid mistakes when people attempt to parse ambiguous requests.  Acceptance criteria allow the team to estimate more effectively and split stories.  

Finally, embrace the INVEST model of writing user stories.  INVEST stands for independent, negotiated, valuable, estimated, small, and testable.  These qualities make a user story a helpful nugget of information to help complete work.  

User stories are the bricks that make up the cathedral of your product.  If you create quality stories those bricks will be strong enough to make your product a success.  The architect Louis Kahn famously said, "Even a brick wants to be something."  

Next time the soft skills of a good product owner.