User stories are a key tool in agile development for formulating requirements in a clear and user-oriented way. In this article, you will learn how to write effective user stories – from the right structure to clear acceptance criteria. Agile values and principles, such as a focus on customer benefit, flexibility and continuous value creation, will help you as a guide. It also explains why cutting large user stories is crucial to staying agile. Practical methods such as the I.N.V.E.S.T. principle and S.P.I.D.R.help you to design stories in a manageable and value-oriented way.
User stories at a glance
User stories are a key tool in agile projects, but why do we use them at all? Their value lies not only in documenting requirements, but rather in focusing on the customer and their needs. They create a common understanding within the team and serve as a basis for discussions. Instead of writing complex specifications, user stories get to the heart of the added value of a product or function: what does the user want and why is this important?
Typically, a user story follows a simple structure: “As [Rolle], I would like [Ziel] to reach [Nutzen].” This clarity helps you and your team to focus on the added value for the end user instead of getting lost in technical details. But user stories are more than just text – they are closely linked to the product backlog and form the basis for prioritization, sprint planning and daily collaboration in the agile process.
User stories bring the team and stakeholders together and make it possible to make requirements tangible. They are the backbone of an agile backlog and ensure that everyone involved keeps the customer in mind.
Writing user stories
Writing user stories requires not only creativity, but also structure. For user stories to be truly effective, they need to be clear, precise and to the point. But how exactly do you formulate a good user story that helps your team to focus on the customer and their needs?
Components of a user story
Every user story, as you can find them in tools such as Jira, contains three essential components: a name, a description and acceptance criteria. The name serves as a concise reference that summarizes the goal or benefit of the story so that you and your team can quickly grasp what it is about. In the classic user story format, the description provides an overview of the requirement from the user’s perspective: “As [Rolle], I would like [Ziel] to [Nutzen].” This keeps the customer benefit in focus at all times. Finally, the acceptance criteria define clear conditions that must be met for the story to be considered complete. These criteria ensure that everyone involved has the same understanding of the implementation and the expected result.
Formulating a good name
The name of a user story may seem simple, but it plays a bigger role than you might think. A good name must be understandable, concise and memorable. It serves as a quick reference, both in day-to-day work and in discussions. When naming a user story, try to focus on the main benefit or core function. Names such as “Create user account” or “Add item to wishlist” are clear and precise. Avoid titles that are too long or technically complicated, as they can cause unnecessary confusion.
Formulating user stories: The user voice format
The “user voice format” (“As [Rolle] I would like [Ziel] to reach [Nutzen] “) is a tried-and-tested method for formulating user stories. It helps you to adopt the user’s perspective and ensures that the story conveys clear added value. Instead of describing general or technical requirements, this format forces you to see the whole thing from the end user’s perspective. This creates stories that are not only actionable, but also valuable.
Example: “As a registered user, I would like to change my password to increase my account security.”
This clearly states who is performing the action (the registered user), what is to be done (change password) and why (increase account security).
It answers the questions: Who is the user? What do they want to achieve? And why is this important to them?
- Role: Who is the user or target group for whom you are writing the story? This can be an end customer, an internal user or a specific stakeholder group.
- Goal: What does this user want to achieve? This is where you describe the user’s action or need.
- Benefit: Why is this goal important for the user? What is the added value or motivation behind it?
This structure means that the focus always remains on the actual benefit for the user, which is one of the core ideas of agile methods. It is not only important what is built, but above all why it is built.
Formulate acceptance criteria
User stories alone are not enough – they must have clearly defined acceptance criteria. These criteria determine when a user story is considered “completed”. They describe the exact conditions that must be met for the story to be considered successfully implemented. Without acceptance criteria, there may be misunderstandings as to whether the requirement has been implemented completely or correctly.
Acceptance criteria could look like this:
- The user must be able to enter a new password and confirm it.
- An error message appears if the passwords do not match.
- The new password is successfully saved and the user receives a confirmation message.
With clear acceptance criteria, the development team knows exactly what needs to be delivered and there is no uncertainty about when the story will be completed.
Best Practices - I.N.V.E.S.T & 3Cs
To ensure that your user stories are really effective, there are a few best practices that you should follow. One well-known rule is the I.N.V.E.S.T. rule:
- Independent: If possible, the user story should be able to be implemented independently of other stories.
- Negotiable: It should not contain fixed specifications, but leave room for discussion.
- Valuable: Every user story must offer clear added value for the end user.
- Estimable: The story must be formulated clearly enough for the team to estimate the effort.
- Small: A good user story should be small enough to be implemented within a sprint.
- Testable: The story must be testable so that it is clear whether the requirements have been met.
Another useful concept is Ron Jeffries’ 3Cs:
- Card (map): Each user story should be represented on a map (physical or digital) that contains the basic information.
- Conversation: The details of the user story emerge from the conversation between the team and the stakeholders.
- Confirmation: The acceptance criteria serve as confirmation that the story has been successfully implemented.
By applying these principles, you not only write good user stories, but also help your team to work effectively and goal-oriented. User stories provide a clear and customer-oriented way to formulate requirements and ensure that the development team understands exactly what is needed and why it is important.
Cut user stories
Writing user stories is only the first step. You will often find that your story is too big, too complex or simply not suitable for a sprint. This is where cutting user stories comes into play. But why do we cut them in the first place, and what is the best way to do it?
Why do we cut user stories?
The main reason why we cut user stories lies in the agile principles themselves. Agile means you want to react quickly to change and deliver value continuously. Large user stories, often referred to as “epics”, are difficult to estimate, take too much time to implement and bring the risk of losing sight of customer value.
By breaking down large stories into smaller, manageable units, you can deliver working software on a regular basis, keep your team focused and respond to feedback faster. Small, manageable user stories are easier to prioritize and allow you to take an iterative approach, which is a key element of agile methods.
Agile principles that explain why we cut user stories
Some of the agile principles illustrate why cutting user stories is so important:
- Continuous delivery of value: Agile working strives to deliver working software as quickly as possible. Large, monolithic user stories delay this as they take a long time to complete.
- Flexibility and adaptability: If you have smaller user stories, you can prioritize and adapt them more easily. This allows you to react better to changing requirements or feedback.
- Value orientation: Small, focused stories ensure that you don’t lose sight of the added value for the user. This reduces the risk of getting lost in details that have no direct benefit.
Horizontal vs. vertical cut
When cutting user stories, you differentiate between horizontal and vertical cutting. It is important to understand which approach makes sense when.
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Horizontal cut: With horizontal cutting, you break down a functionality into layers or technical levels. For example, horizontal slicing could separate the database logic from the user interface. The problem with this is that you may end up with a user story that doesn’t provide a complete benefit for the end user. Therefore, this approach is often less suitable as it may look technically clean but does not fulfill the agile principle of continuous delivery of value.
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Vertical cutting: With vertical cutting, you cut the story in such a way that each cut story represents a complete cut through the system – from the database to the business logic to the user interface. In this way, you deliver a functioning, valuable component with each cut user story. Vertical slicing is the preferred approach because it ensures that every story you deliver provides immediate value.
Pattern according to S.P.I.D.R. - Mike Cohn
A proven method for cutting user stories comes from Mike Cohn and is known as the S.P.I.D.R. approach. This approach offers you five possible cutting patterns to break down large user stories into smaller, valuable units:
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Spike (S): Sometimes a user story is too complex to solve immediately. In this case, you can use a spike – a short research story that helps you reduce uncertainty. A spike does not directly serve to deliver value, but creates clarity on how you can implement the actual story.
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Path (P): If your user story has several alternative ways to achieve a goal, you can cut it along these paths. For example, a story could include the ability to use a feature on desktop or mobile. Each of these paths could become a separate story.
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Interface (I): A user story can often be cut based on different interfaces. If your system has both an API and a user interface, you could cut the stories so that you develop the API first and then the interface.
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Data (D): Another option is to cut the story based on the different data types. For example, you could first edit the basic data in a story and add additional fields or more complex data types in a later story.
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Rules (R): Complex business rules or validations can often be split into individual stories. You could start with a simple version of the rule and gradually add additional rules.
This approach helps you to maintain an overview and divide a story into smaller, value-adding units.
Patterns from HumanizingWork
In addition to the S.P.I.D.R. approach, there are also methods such as those of Humanizing Work, which focus on the human aspect and value orientation. They recommend cutting user stories in such a way that they always cover the user’s “happy path” experience. So you start with the most basic function that already offers the user direct added value and then expand it step by step.
One example would be the development of a login system. Instead of immediately implementing every possible error handling, you start with the basic function: “As a user, I would like to be able to log in with a valid password.” Then you could cut the error handling such as “forgotten password” or “incorrect password” as separate user stories.
Workshop: "Mastering user stories - from writing to editing"
Conclusion
Writing and editing user stories is much more than just a method for documenting requirements. It is a crucial component of agile working methods that ensures your team always focuses on customer benefit and continuous value delivery. Well-formulated user stories make it possible to make complex requirements understandable and feasible. Agile principles such as transparency, collaboration and flexibility help you to do this.
Cutting large stories into smaller, manageable units encourages iterativity and allows your team to work quickly and efficiently. You can use proven techniques such as the I.N.V.E.S.T. principle or cutting patterns such as S.P.I.D.R. to ensure that each story offers clear added value and can be realistically implemented in a sprint.
In the end, it’s about you and your team being able to structure requirements in the form of user stories in such a way that they are easy to understand, testable and deliverable. With the right tools and a good story editing technique, you ensure that the agile process runs smoothly and continuously adapts to the needs of your customers and the challenges of the project. Well-written and edited user stories are the key to a successful agile workflow and long-term project success.
The most frequently asked questions (FAQ)
In Scrum, a user story is a short, simple description of a requirement from the end user’s perspective. It serves to clarify what the user wants and what added value the implementation offers. User stories are central components of the product backlog and are prioritized and implemented as part of sprint planning. Their aim is to focus on the added value for the user instead of getting lost in technical specifications.
A user story typically consists of three main components:
- Description: In the format “As [Rolle] I would like to use [Ziel] to reach [Nutzen].”
- Acceptance criteria: These determine when the story is considered finished and which conditions must be fulfilled.
- Discussions/notes: Relevant details, open questions or technical considerations that need to be clarified during development are documented here.
In addition, the user story should have a clear and concise name that makes the goal of the story understandable.
A good user story should be designed according to the I.N.V.E.S.T. principle:
- Independent: It can be implemented independently of other user stories.
- Negotiable: It provides room for discussion and customization.
- Valuable: It offers a clear benefit to the end user.
- Estimable: The effort required to implement the story must be realistically estimable.
- Small: It should be able to be completed in one sprint.
- Testable: There must be clear acceptance criteria to check whether the story has been fully implemented.
User stories are short, simple descriptions from the end user’s perspective and focus on the added value that a function offers. They are often less detailed and serve as a basis for discussions within the team.
Use cases, on the other hand, are more detailed descriptions of interactions between a user and the system. They comprise several scenarios, including alternative processes and error handling, and are often more technical. While user stories usually provide more of an overview, use cases delve deeper into the functionality and processes.
The Definition of Done (DoD) describes which conditions must be fulfilled for a user story to be considered completed. It specifies which quality standards and requirements a story must fulfill in order to be considered “finished”. Typical criteria in the Definition of Done can be
- The code is fully implemented and tested.
- The story’s acceptance criteria are met.
- The code is documented and entered into the version control system.
- The changes are made available on the development environment or the production server.
- The product owner has approved the story.
The Definition of Done ensures that the team and stakeholders have a common understanding of what “done” means.
