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Agile: Use Cases v/s User Stories
Agile: Use Cases v/s User Stories

July 13, 2022

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This blog is the third in the series of blogs on Agile.

As pointed out by Alistair Cockburn, co-author of the Agile Manifesto, “A user story is to a use case as a gazelle is to a gazebo.” Use cases and user stories might sound similar but are very different from each other.

User stories are short descriptions from the customer’s perspective talking about what they would do when visit your application or website. Use cases have deeper context. Creating detailed use cases is a much more in-depth process that’s designed to help teams understand how a user interacts with a system.

Use cases have been the standard for many years, used in business analysis, systems analysis, software requirements, and iterative development. With the rise of Agile, software projects started using user stories in place of use cases because they allowed for improved incremental thinking and agility.

What is a User Story?

A user story defines who, what, and why of a goal/ outcome that the user wants to achieve. It’s defined from the point of view of the end user.

A user story is designed to be as simple as possible leaving out any technical lingo. A sample format could be: As an [actor] I want [action] so that [achievement]. So example would be: As a XYZ website member, I want to restrict privacy controls on my profile, so I can control who sees which of my photos.

Great user stories highlight the value you will deliver your users. As they are written in the language of the person using your product, they rely on 3Cs: Card, Conversation and Confirmation. This means that good examples should be short enough to fit on an index card. They are able to start a conversation that builds a shared understanding of the work involved. Also, making it easy to confirm when the work is completed.

To have a good user story, the INVEST criteria for Agile should be met. User stories should be:

  • Independent- The user stories should not be dependent on other user stories. Dependencies cause delays.
  • Negotiable- Accepting that the story may or may not change lets you adjust what you deliver as you learn on the go.
  • Valuable- in Agile, your goal is to deliver valuable working software. So user stories need to explicitly state the value they would entail.
  • Estimable- Should be able to give the development team enough detail to estimate the size of the story.
  • Small- Agile works in iterations so you can get quick feedback from your users. Smaller stories are more likely to be delivering value by iteration’s end.
  • Testable- The story should be clear enough that you can assess if the story is done.

In all, user stories are the onset of a bigger process that describes a customer's actions as they use your product. They are crisp and short and hence promote more discussion and collaboration between all stakeholders.

 

Upcoming: Scrum, Kanban and Lean Methodologies (Agile series part 4)

Read the other blogs in the series of Agile: 

An Alliance with Agile and 6 Best Practices your Agile Team should Adopt

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