Embed context in your stories
This post is part of a series of Rules of thumb for writing Agile Stories
As a User I want…
What is the User doing? Why are they here? What is their motivation? Is the kettle currently on?
There’s a lot of context that “As a User” misses. Yet those three words flow out of my mouth without a second thought. Using a Persona will help increase the context but then it will be hidden away in the Persona definition.
An example:
As a User
I want to give you my new address
so that I don’t lose my pension
Why is the User giving us a new address? Who are they? What caused them to come to us?
You can probably infer the context that is missing here, but this won’t always be the case. If we include the context explicitly we would get:
As a pensioner who has recently moved house
I want to give you my new address
so that I don’t lose my pension
Much better.
This can be especially useful when you have a very complex process and the specific need you are trying to document could be confused for being needed in a different circumstance.
As a conveyancer who is waiting for a discharge
I want to be notified of that change
So that I can proceed with my case as soon as possible
Now there is little ambiguity over when the user would have this need and everyone can better understand why exactly they have this need.
This post is part of a series of Rules of thumb for writing Agile Stories