MSF for Agile Software Development

User Stories

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.

 

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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