1.2.2 Collaborative User Story Creation

Question 1

Why is Collaborative User Story Creation important?

Answer 1

Poor specifications are often a major reason for project failure.

Specification problems can result from the users’ lack of insight into their true needs, absence of a global vision for the system, redundant or contradictory features, and other miscommunications.

In Agile development, user stories are written to capture requirements from the perspectives of developers, testers, and business representatives.

In sequential development, this shared vision of a feature is accomplished through formal reviews after requirements are written; in Agile development, this shared vision is accomplished through frequent informal reviews while the requirements are being written.

Question 2

What do user stories address?

Answer 2

The user stories must address both functional and non-functional characteristics.

Each story includes acceptance criteria for these characteristics.

These criteria should be defined in collaboration between business representatives, developers, and testers.

They provide developers and testers with an extended vision of the feature that business representatives will validate.

An Agile team considers a task finished when a set of acceptance criteria have been satisfied.

Question 3

What is the testers role in Collaborative User Story Creation?

Answer 3

Typically, the tester’s unique perspective will improve the user story by identifying missing details or non-functional requirements.

A tester can contribute by asking business representatives open-ended questions about the user story, proposing ways to test the user story, and confirming the acceptance criteria.

Question 4

What is the INVEST technique?

Answer 4

The collaborative authorship of the user story can use techniques such as brainstorming and mind mapping. The tester may use the INVEST technique [INVEST]:
 Independent
 Negotiable
 Valuable
 Estimable
 Small
 Testable

Question 5

What is the the 3C concept?

Answer 5

According to the 3C concept [Jeffries00], a user story is the conjunction of three elements:

 Card: The card is the physical media describing a user story. It identifies the requirement, its criticality, expected development and test duration, and the acceptance criteria for that story. The description has to be accurate, as it will be used in the product backlog.

 Conversation: The conversation explains how the software will be used. The conversation can be documented or verbal. Testers, having a different point of view than developers and business representatives [ISTQB_FL_SYL], bring valuable input to the exchange of thoughts, opinions, and experiences. Conversation begins during the release-planning phase and continues when the story is scheduled.

 Confirmation: The acceptance criteria, discussed in the conversation, are used to confirm that the story is done. These acceptance criteria may span multiple user stories. Both positive and negative tests should be used to cover the criteria. During confirmation, various participants play the role of a tester. These can include developers as well as specialists focused on performance, security, interoperability, and other quality characteristics. To confirm a story as done, the defined acceptance criteria should be tested and shown to be satisfied.

Agile teams vary in terms of how they document user stories. Regardless of the approach taken to document user stories, documentation should be concise, sufficient, and necessary.