What is an ideal user story?

[Abhishek Sharma]

Hello Folks,

Can anyone suggest me, how to write an ideal user story?

Should be very detailed, like an essay? or Should it be brief, just important points with a little description/definition?

Should it be functionality wise? or should it be screen wise?

[Deleted user]

Hi @Abhishek Sharma,

This depends on the client, business and the supplier requirements as for how much information you need to account for in a User Story. 

My suggestion would be to read anything by Mike Cohn of Mountain Goat Software, on the subject. 

In my experience a User Story needs to have as a minimum;

1. A goal (usually this can be gathered from the client's expectations of the product).
2. Acceptance Criteria (measurable criteria that the Story will be assessed against).
3. User Personas (who and how is the product to be used by certain user types).
4. Non-Functional Requirements
5. And any other information that relates to the delivery of the Story.

Hope this helps

[Abhishek Sharma]

Hey @[deleted] Thank you for the reply. Yes, this was helpful. Specially, the link of Mike Cohn of Mountain Goat Software.

But, i have got one more question. Is it better to create a large epic and divide it into multiple small stories? or is it better to create a story with detailed description and let the developers create the sub-tasks as they want?

P.S. I am following the later one, but i want to understand, whether i am doing it right or not?

[Deleted user]

Create an Epic per Large Product, work is spread across multiple sprints to be large.

Break up your Epic into Stories for each user feature.

Your team lead should be able to let you know if the story needs to be broken into sub-tasks. 

Personally, I create a sub-task for each person to work on the same Story as the work could be across multiple teams. 

Thanks

[Abhishek Sharma]

So, to implement this, i need to have smaller stories which can be managed in one sprint.

Thank you @[deleted] for you help.

[Deleted user]

Anytime :)

[Jason Walther]

You could also add testcases.

Once you discuss the User Stories with your Dev-Team, Steakholders,... you can add more testcases. This also helps the developers while they implement the feature!

I agree with Danny by reading everything from Mike Cohn. He also has a very good book called "User Stories Applied".