User Story
Overview
A user story is used to build the Product Backlog. In the
simplest terms a user story records the need for some work. Additionally,
a user story records the conversation that took place between the analyst and
the owner of the feature as the user story was fleshed out. Finally, the
user story contains the acceptance test which will be used to verify that the
user story has been completed.
States and Transitions
New
A user story is new when it is first created. Create a new
user story when work has been identified from either the user stories or
another source.
New to Active
Investigate |
A user story may be assigned to a team member for validation or analysis
before it is assigned to a sprint. |
Accepted |
A user story may be made active when it has been validated and assigned
to a team member. |
Active
A user story is active when it has been reviewed by the scrum
master and team and has been targeted for further analysis or has been accepted
as valid work for the project.
Active to Closed
Overtaken |
A user story may be closed if the item has been overtaken by events in the project. |
Duplicate |
A user story may be closed if the item is the duplicate of another user story. |
Postponed |
A user story may be closed if the project team decides to postpone the work. |
Removed |
A user story may be closed if it has been removed from the project backlog. |
Active to Resolved
Complete (No Verification) |
A user story may be marked as resolved once the work has been completed and may or
may not need to be verified. |
Complete (Requires
Verification) |
A user story may be marked as resolved once the work has been completed and may or
may not need to be verified. |
Resolved
A user story is resolved when the work that it specified has been
completed but not yet tested or reviewed.
Resolved to Active
Verification Failed |
A user story may need to be reactivated if verification of the work completed is
not successful. |
Resolved to Closed
Verified |
A user story may be closed once the work completed has been successfully
verified. |
Closed
A user story is closed when the work that it specifies has either
been completed or is no longer needed for the the project.
Closed to Active
Reactivated | A
user story may need to be reactivated for a variety of reasons. |
Closed in Error |
A user story may have been closed by accident and need to be reopened. |
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Fields
Title | Required. The title provides a concise
description of the user story. The title should be descriptive enough to allow the team to understand what the potential
user story is. |
Area | The area is used to group the
user story into an appropriate feature or team area. The area must be a valid node in the project hierarchy. |
Sprint | The iteration in which the
user story could be occur. |
Assigned To | The current person that
user story is assigned to. Generally, it is a
scrum master but may be any of the project team members. |
Priority |
The importance of the user story to the project team. Higher
priority user stories should be dealt with first. |
Complexity |
A numeric representation of the complexity of the backlog item. |
State | Required. Used to determine the status of the
user story in
its lifecycle. A user story can be in the New, Active,
Resolved or Closed states. |
Reason | The reason a
user story is in the current state. |
Description | This field provides a description of the
user story, any project exposure, and potential mitigations. |
Acceptance State |
The status of the acceptance test. A user story may have an
acceptance state of Not Ready, Ready, Failed, Passed or Skipped. |
Acceptance Test
Description |
The detailed description of the test to verify the functionality of
the user story from the perspective of the owner. |
History | The history field contains the set of changes to the work item. |
Links | Links to related work items, hyperlinks, changesets, or source code files. |
Attachments | Attach related files providing additional documentation around the
user story. |
Issue | Used to
highlight the user story as an issue. |
Exit Criteria |
Used to flag the user story as exit criteria for the project. |
Integration Build |
The build in which the backlog
item was completed. |
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