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Recitation 1: User Stories

Overview

This recitation will give you the opportunity to familiarize yourself with user stories and help you capture the end user perspective as you build projects.

Staff Overview

  • Mehul Agarwal & Rohit Nanjangud Shreenivas
  • Emails: mehula@andrew.cmu.edu & rshreeni@andrew.cmu.edu
  • Office Hours: TBD

What are User Stories

The general criteria for a user story: - Capture a description of a software feature from an end-user perspective - Are used for planning - Facilitate conversation among users, stakeholders, developers and etc.

User Story Template

image

For example, for a job portal:

image

Epics V/S User Stories

In tech, Epics are not as long as The Odyssey or Mahabharat, but their relative scale is similar

For example,

image

As compared to User Stories:

image

image

What makes a good User Story

  • INDEPENDENT
  • NEGOTIABLE
  • VALUABLE
  • ESTIMABLE
  • SMALL
  • TESTABLE

Case Study

Consider the following product by a relatively unknown startup: maps.google.com - Form teams and create User Stories for a Google Maps alternative: image

For example,

  • As a delivery driver I would like to be able to have multiple destinations so that I can maximize tips by doing multiple deliveries as fast as possible

Food for Thought

  • What are the benefits of INVEST?
  • What are the issues with the INVEST approach?

Let's try it out

  • Capture a description of a software feature from an end-user perspective
  • (As a class) Let’s come up with a small example application
  • Same teams, Brainstorm and write 5-10 user stories

The 3C's Approach

  • Card: The user stories written on cards by customer/product owner
  • Conversation: The communication between customer/product owner and developers
  • Confirmation: Acceptance criteria/test

Brass Tacks

  • Homework 1 available on the course website now