What do you think?
Rate this book
A Little Book about Requirements and User Stories
User Stories and more - well, a bit about requirements and backlogs actually.
A collection of pieces which originally appeared elsehwere, plus new chapters on backlog management.
Bulk of the chapters appeared in The Agile Connection between summer 2015 and early 2016 with additional chapters
A collection of pieces which originally appeared elsehwere, plus new chapters on backlog management.
Bulk of the chapters appeared in The Agile Connection between summer 2015 and early 2016 with additional chapters
- GenresNonfiction
127 pages, ebook
Published January 1, 2016
18 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Allan Kelly
21 books16 followersAllan Kelly has held just about every job in the software world, from system admin to development manager by way of programmer and product manager. Today he works helping teams adopt and deepen Agile practices, and writing far too much. He specialises in working with software product companies and aligning products and processes with company strategy.
He is the author of three books: "Xanpan - reflections on agile and software development" (https://leanpub.com/xanpan), "Business Patterns for Software Developers" and “Changing Software Development: Learning to be Agile”; the originator of Retrospective Dialogue Sheets (http://www.dialoguesheets.com), a regular conference speaker and frequent contributor to journals.
More about Allan at http://www.allankelly.net and on Twitter as @allankellynet (http://twitter.com/allankellynet).
He is the author of three books: "Xanpan - reflections on agile and software development" (https://leanpub.com/xanpan), "Business Patterns for Software Developers" and “Changing Software Development: Learning to be Agile”; the originator of Retrospective Dialogue Sheets (http://www.dialoguesheets.com), a regular conference speaker and frequent contributor to journals.
More about Allan at http://www.allankelly.net and on Twitter as @allankellynet (http://twitter.com/allankellynet).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 18, 2021
Indeed "a little book". You can make it through in two afternoons.
I reached for the book because I have been feeling that User Stories are doing harm to the industry. After few books about product management and Mike Cohn's blog I reached some level, thus the book seemed to be too fundamental.
It lacks the INVEST model, however this is not a big problem as it approaches user stories slicing in a similar way. I think that the author could criticize more on bad user stories which are flooding the backlogs all over the world (clicking on buttons, showing modals, focusing on UI, and neglecting business value). Don't get me wrong - the author writes about value in user stories and talks about the right detail level but he could add 10-20 pages on the bad examples.
The good things now. I liked that the author repeated few times that the user story is a placeholder for conversation and should provoke good and healthy communication during the iteration and gives valid points on that. There were more valuable observations related not only to user stories but analysis, basic hygiene when working with backlog, epics, and specifications. Specification separation from acceptance criteria was the most important thing for me in the book.
Despite few drawbacks, the book is worth reading.
I reached for the book because I have been feeling that User Stories are doing harm to the industry. After few books about product management and Mike Cohn's blog I reached some level, thus the book seemed to be too fundamental.
It lacks the INVEST model, however this is not a big problem as it approaches user stories slicing in a similar way. I think that the author could criticize more on bad user stories which are flooding the backlogs all over the world (clicking on buttons, showing modals, focusing on UI, and neglecting business value). Don't get me wrong - the author writes about value in user stories and talks about the right detail level but he could add 10-20 pages on the bad examples.
The good things now. I liked that the author repeated few times that the user story is a placeholder for conversation and should provoke good and healthy communication during the iteration and gives valid points on that. There were more valuable observations related not only to user stories but analysis, basic hygiene when working with backlog, epics, and specifications. Specification separation from acceptance criteria was the most important thing for me in the book.
Despite few drawbacks, the book is worth reading.
April 14, 2020
Short and useful book with some surprising observations. My favorite:
The business value, that Product Owners assign to a story, will influence the estimate of work. A story assigned a business value of $1M will get one technical solution. The identical in every respect story assigned a business value of $100K will get a very different technical solution. Similarly, estimates of story points/work will impact the assignment of story value. This is the anchoring bias at work.
The business value, that Product Owners assign to a story, will influence the estimate of work. A story assigned a business value of $1M will get one technical solution. The identical in every respect story assigned a business value of $100K will get a very different technical solution. Similarly, estimates of story points/work will impact the assignment of story value. This is the anchoring bias at work.
March 9, 2019
Lots of knowledge under this little book
After project myopia ok started reading this one, I love the way Allan can explain complex stuff in simple ways and giving examples. I have took some important intention here that I can apply right away. Love it
After project myopia ok started reading this one, I love the way Allan can explain complex stuff in simple ways and giving examples. I have took some important intention here that I can apply right away. Love it
February 7, 2018
A nice little book on user stories. Not for the beginner, but with many good ideas on how to use them effectively.
September 10, 2018
Useful, succinct heuristics. Though some repetition, and quite a number of grammatical/spelling errors!
September 1, 2022
A delightful short and clear description of user stories and the concepts relevant to it. Suitable as a reference guide for those more experienced and helpful for those new to the topic just getting into it. I'll be sharing the book with my team so we can all get up to date on user story principles in our day to day work.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews