DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Partner Zones AWS Cloud
by AWS Developer Relations
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Partner Zones
AWS Cloud
by AWS Developer Relations
Securing Your Software Supply Chain with JFrog and Azure
Register Today

Trending

  • A Deep Dive Into the Differences Between Kafka and Pulsar
  • 10 Traits That Separate the Best Devs From the Crowd
  • Strategies for Reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) For Integration Solutions
  • Integrating AWS With Salesforce Using Terraform

Trending

  • A Deep Dive Into the Differences Between Kafka and Pulsar
  • 10 Traits That Separate the Best Devs From the Crowd
  • Strategies for Reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) For Integration Solutions
  • Integrating AWS With Salesforce Using Terraform
  1. DZone
  2. Culture and Methodologies
  3. Agile
  4. Martin Fowler: User Stories

Martin Fowler: User Stories

Martin Fowler user avatar by
Martin Fowler
·
Apr. 24, 13 · Interview
Like (1)
Save
Tweet
Share
26.98K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

user stories are chunks of desired behavior of a software system. they are widely used in agile software approaches to divide up a large amount of functionality into smaller pieces for planning purposes. you also hear the same concept referred to as a feature , but the term "story" or "user story" has become prevalent in agile circles these days.

kent beck first introduced the term as part of extreme programming to encourage a more informal and conversational style of requirements elicitation than long written specifications. the essence of a story can be written on a single note card (kent and i prefer 3" by 5"). stories are deliberately not fleshed out in detail until they are ready to be developed, you only need enough understanding to allow prioritization with other stories.

bill wake came up with the invest mnemonic to describe the characteristics of good stories:

  • independent : the stories can be delivered in any order
  • negotiable : the details of what's in the story are co-created by the programmers and customer during development.
  • valuable : the functionality is seen as valuable by the customers or users of the software.
  • estimable : the programmers can come up with a reasonable estimate for building the story
  • small : stories should be built in a small amount of time, usually a matter of person-days. certainly you should be able to build several stories within one iteration.
  • testable : you should be able to write tests to verify the software for this story works correctly.

a common way to formulate stories is the "as a … i want … so that …" form. the "as a" clause refers to who wants the story, "i want" describes what the functionality is, "so that" describes why they want this functionality. the "so that" part provides important context to understand to help get from what the customer think they want to providing what they actually need.

mike cohn wrote what is now the standard book on writing user stories . to understand the roots of user stories in xp consider the white book , or the tasteful green book . in an earlier bliki entry i discuss why usecasesandstories are different.

Software Requirements elicitation Extreme programming Book Programmer (hardware) agile Concept (generic programming) Cards (iOS) Testing

Published at DZone with permission of Martin Fowler, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Trending

  • A Deep Dive Into the Differences Between Kafka and Pulsar
  • 10 Traits That Separate the Best Devs From the Crowd
  • Strategies for Reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) For Integration Solutions
  • Integrating AWS With Salesforce Using Terraform

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com

Let's be friends: