There are two reasons for all bugs, delays and frustrations – missing requirements and poor communication.
The user story is a conversation starter. It’s not a requirement.
However, that conversation never happens for many software development teams, and they treat user stories like requirements.
The backlog refinements and the sprint plannings are insufficient to make a proper User Story analysis without a practical agenda for each user story.
This workshop will demonstrate a neat, structured, quality-driven, yet human-driven and engaging approach to analysing user stories and building team routines to turn the user story into well-thought-out requirements.
The User Story Analysis practice is performed on a collaborative board with 6 frames as follows:
- Text Analysis
- Context Analysis
- User Visualisation
- Goals, Need, Intentions, Quality, Risks (GNI QR)
- Quality and Test Analysis
- Tasks Breakdown
We’ll get ready for development by deeply empathising with our users, visualising where they are and how they feel when they use our features.
Then we’ll uncover the actual context, goals, needs and intentions behind the user story. We’ll try to anticipate all the known risks and what could go wrong.
We’ll identify the test conditions, define the cases as a team, and narrow down the tasks necessary to deliver complete user value, not only coding and testing.
It takes a village to deliver working software on time, and the User Story Analysis is the forum to bring everyone interested in the story on the same page and build a united front for everything unknown. It’s a collaborative way to prepare software development teams to deliver software with great confidence, considering all vital software characteristics and revealing critical risks early in the process.
In the form of a set of quick brainstorming sessions, the practice shines a light on each other’s way of thinking. It thus amplifies the Team’s capabilities by eliminating the risk of misunderstanding and facilitating alignment on an organisational level.
The User Story Analysis is the missing link in modern software development.
Learning Outcomes
- Write well-articulated and precise user stories following a User Story Checklist.
- Use visualisation techniques to empathise with users at a deeper level and translate their Goals, Needs and Intentions into meaningful requirements.
- Identify quality risks early. Define the testing approach as a Team.
- Get the Team and the user story ready for development, and eliminate communication waste.
- Build engaging practices to make user story analysis a team routine using a User Story Analysis collaboration board.
