Teach the Product Owner & Developers How to Write Effective User Stories
Teams that master Scrum know that the key to success lies in the timely and increasingly refined breakdown of work on the Product Backlog. They prefer Sprint Backlogs with small (functional) items instead of just a few large ones, as smaller items improve flow and reduce the risk of failing the sprint.
To illustrate, instead of completing the first layer of the cake, we aim to complete a slice of the cake. With this strategy, value can be delivered rather than waiting for functional silos to complete their layers. To achieve this, we can introduce the User Story format and work with the Acceptance Criteria technique. This allows the Scrum Team to easily understand who needs the value, why they need it, and what they require.
Why is it important?
The purpose of the Scrum Team is to create Increments with each Sprint and validate their assumptions along the way. By breaking down large requirements into smaller, valuable stories, the Scrum Team can deliver small parts of the requirements and gather feedback from their users. This will gradually increase the team’s agility.
- As a Scrum Master you can use the Elephant Carpaccio Ecerciese to teach the whole team on how to get better on this topic.
- You can watch the video Stop Feeling Overwhelmed: Split User Stories in 2 Steps.
- You can watch the video 5 User Stpry Tips You Must Know.
- You can try to formulate your requirements as in the below example.
AS A <>
I WANT <>
SO THAT <>
And the criteria you need to see to call it done:
- You can read the article 10 Powerful Strategies To Break Down Product Backlog Items in Scrum.
You can read the article The Humanizing Work Guide to Splitting User Stories.
