Six Features of a Good User Story - INVEST Model
October 16, 2007 by Vaibhav
What is a User Story?
A user story describes desired functionality from the customer(user) perspective. A good user story describes the desired functionality, who wants it, and how and why the functionality will be used. The basic components of a User Story are sometimes dubbed as the three C's:
- Card - the written description of the story, serves as and identification, reminder, and also helps in planning.
- Conversation - this is the meat of the story; the dialogue that is carried out with the users; recorded notes; mockups; documents exchanged.
- Confirmation - the acceptance test criteria that the user will utilize to confirm that the story is completed.
A user story is not technical.
A well-written user story follows the INVEST model
Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable. Let's see what each one means:
- Independent - One user story should be independent of another (as much as possible). Dependencies between stories make planning, prioritization, and estimation much more difficult. Often enough, dependencies can be reduced by either combining stories into one or by splitting the stories differently.
- Negotiable - A user story is negotiable. The "Card" of the story is just a short description of the story which do not include details. The details are worked out during the "Conversation" phase. A "Card" with too much detail on it actually limits conversation with the customer.
- Valuable - Each story has to be of value to the customer (either the user or the purchaser). One very good way of making stories valuable is to get the customer to write them. Once a customer realizes that a user story is not a contract and is negotiable, they will be much more comfortable writing stories.
- Estimable - The developers need to be able to estimate (at a ballpark even) a user story to allow prioritization and planning of the story. Problems that can keep developers from estimating a story are: lack of domain knowledge (in which case there is a need for more Negotiation/Conversation); or if the story is too big (in which case the story needs to be broken down into smaller stories).
- Small - A good story should be small in effort, typically representing no more, than 2-3 person weeks of effort. A story which is more than that in effort can have more errors associated with scoping and estimation.
- Testable - A story needs to be testable for the "Confirmation" to take place. Remember, we do not develop what we cannot test. If you can't test it then you will never know when you are done. An example of non-testable story: "software should be easy to use".
Summary
Well-written User Stories are cornerstones for Agile Development. They should be independent of each other; the details should be negotiated between the users and the developers; the stories should be of value to the users; they should be clear enough for developers to be able to estimate them; they should be small; and they should be testable through the use of pre-defined test cases.
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Comments
Examples
October 17, 2007 by Artem, 5 years 31 weeks ago
Comment id: 1372
Vaibhav, what could a good INVESTed user story look like? Could you give an example? Possibly an imaginary one.
Here is a quick one (maybe I
October 17, 2007 by Vaibhav, 5 years 31 weeks ago
Comment id: 1373
Here is a quick one (maybe I can add a post at a later date explaining the example a little more)
Scenario is: We are creating an online shopping site.
Here's the Card. This is THE User Story.
- The payment can be done using a credit card.
- Accept MasterCard and Visa. Consider using Amex.
- Customer should not need to specify card type.
Let's see how it is INVEST:
Independent - It is concise, not related to any other functionality and not dependent on anything else either.
Negotiable - Since the story itself is not overly detailing what needs to be done, it leaves a lot of room of conversation during development. During the conversation, notes are created and added to the card, but not at the time of defining the card.
Valuable - The requirement is in a customer-friendly tone, rather than in a technical tone. For example, we could have written something like this: "auto-detection of card type as a function of credit card number"
Estimable - There is nothing vague about this User Story. It is a fixed task which has well-defined end results.
Small - This could have been: "Integrate Online Payments using Credit Cards, Bank Transfers, PayPal, etc." Which is a much larger requirement.
Testable - There can be well-defined test cases here. Such as "Test with Visa", "Test with MasterCard", "Test with Amex", "Try making large purchases", "Test with improper Credit Card Numbers"
I hope that helped...
Added you INVEST model to the C2 wiki
January 27, 2008 by Dan Pupek (not verified), 5 years 17 weeks ago
Comment id: 1446
I added your notes and a link to your blog entry to the C2 wiki.
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?InvestModelForUserStories
Vaibhav, If you can post any
August 8, 2008 by Rajagopal Yendluri (not verified), 4 years 41 weeks ago
Comment id: 1745
Vaibhav,
If you can post any story which is complete and following 3C's and the INVEST model, that helps alot for most of the people.
Regards,
Rajagopal Yendluri(Raj)
Interesting. This is
December 23, 2008 by Dr. Phillip Good (not verified), 4 years 22 weeks ago
Comment id: 2139
Interesting. This is something that I can modify to use during our brainstorming sessions for story development.
Hey! Thanks for a nice post,
December 25, 2008 by Mailer (not verified), 4 years 21 weeks ago
Comment id: 2146
Hey! Thanks for a nice post, I like your style:D I've bookmarked this page, so if others are interested here is the location of bookmark http://searchallinone.com/News/Six_Features_of_a_Good_User_Story_-_INVES...
Great, your example in the
February 28, 2009 by Zoran (not verified), 4 years 12 weeks ago
Comment id: 2304
Great, your example in the above posts also made things easier.
I guess I read that....
March 25, 2009 by Thomas (not verified), 4 years 8 weeks ago
Comment id: 2411
... already in one book by Mike Cohn :-)
Six Features of a Good User Story - INVEST Model
April 29, 2009 by blizzard (not verified), 4 years 3 weeks ago
Comment id: 2482
Thanks for sharing these info with us!
I will keep in touch with your blog reading...
Handy index-card-sized reminder
April 29, 2009 by Tim Ottinger (not verified), 4 years 3 weeks ago
Comment id: 2483
If it helps to keep these in mind, you can grab the index card we made last Feb and print a copy for your cube/office/forehead.
http://agileinaflash.blogspot.com/2009/02/invest.html
User Story Format
August 26, 2009 by Scott Green (not verified), 3 years 39 weeks ago
Comment id: 3082
Many people recommend crafting stories in the following format:
As a [user type] I want to [describe a function or task] so that [describe the benefit].
I noticed that your story in the example above, while VERY clear, does not follow the format others recommend.
Why have you chosen to not follow that format?
Not challenging you..just want to learn everything I can.
Many thanks!
How do I follow this principle on a wizard based workflow
July 15, 2010 by Ranjeet (not verified), 2 years 45 weeks ago
Comment id: 7547
Assume that one of the story as per customer speak is "I want to lodge a new claim for my policy". Typically this will be a series of steps around 6/7 gathering all information and finally lodging a claim. My challenge is that I am always thinking that each step in the 6 step procedure becomes a story. BUt then I am not really following the I and V priniciple mentioned above. Any thoughts how I could have this requirement broken into stories. ?
Thanks,
..Ranjeet
True and Correct
December 28, 2011 by Abbey (not verified), 1 year 21 weeks ago
Comment id: 20658
Agreed, It has to be for the user. A good developer should always think of what value will they give to the costumers. Nice post!
My Thoughts
January 9, 2012 by Paul (not verified), 1 year 19 weeks ago
Comment id: 20739
Assume that one of the story as per customer speak is "I want to lodge a new claim for my policy". Typically this will be a series of steps around 6/7 gathering all information and finally lodging a claim. My challenge is that I am always thinking that each step in the 6 step procedure becomes a story. BUt then I am not really following the I and V priniciple mentioned above. Any thoughts how I could have this requirement broken into stories. ?
Reply to Ranjeet question
January 19, 2012 by Vaibhav N (not verified), 1 year 18 weeks ago
Comment id: 20783
Hi Ranjeet,
There are two approach for the task as per me:
1. Break the story in separate story flows if required.
2. In banking and claim process mainly one need to follow a process which can't be separated or included together. You need to make sure all requirements are covered in conjunction with the rules. At some places you may feel you are breaking some rules but it depends on complexity of the requirement only.
Thanks.
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