<commit_before>---
layout: post
section-type: post
title: Writing Better User Stories?
subtitle: 
comments: true
excerpt_separator: <!--more-->
summary: Coaches and consultants often address "problematic user stories" by helping organizations improve their story writing by adopting a standard format. A focus on writing better stories sidesteps the real problem, one that an "improved" story format cannot address. 
image: /img/drive-by-orders.jpg
category: development practices
tags: ['agile development', 'consulting']
---


<img src='/img/drive-by-orders.jpg' alt='Drive by orders sign' class='img-responsive' />

Issues with user stories are a common problem for software development organizations that adopt agile frameworks. At some point in their journey development organizations will ask, _"How do we write better user stories?"_ Well-meaning coaches or consultants come to the rescue. Their advice usually includes adopting the [Connextra user story format](https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/user-story-template/) (also called _role-feature-reason_). Sometimes the advice includes standards for acceptance criteria like using the [Gherkin syntax](https://cucumber.io/docs/gherkin/reference/). When the goal is **_writing_** better stories the result is often a large, overly complicated template to use in Jira.

<!--more-->

Advice like this: ([User Story Template: How to Write User Stories Efficiently](https://hygger.io/blog/user-story-template-how-to-write-it/)) is all too common but sidesteps the real issue. I contend that the more boxes on a user story template or the more required data on a Jira input screen, the more time and money will be wasted on a symptom of the problem. As <NAME> states in the introduction of his book _User Story Mapping_, "Shared documents aren't shared understanding." A requirements document does a poor job of establishing a shared understanding. Even the ones that follow a standard template.

> Shared documents aren't shared understanding  <commit_msg>fixes typo<commit_after>---
layout: post
section-type: post
title: Writing Better User Stories?
subtitle: 
comments: true
excerpt_separator: <!--more-->
summary: Coaches and consultants often address "problematic user stories" by helping organizations improve their story writing by adopting a standard format. A focus on writing better stories sidesteps the real problem, one that an "improved" story format cannot address. 
image: /img/drive-by-orders.jpg
category: development practices
tags: ['agile development', 'consulting']
---


<img src='/img/drive-by-orders.jpg' alt='Drive by orders sign' class='img-responsive' />

Issues with user stories are a common problem for software development organizations that adopt agile frameworks. At some point in their journey development organizations will ask, _"How do we write better user stories?"_ Well-meaning coaches or consultants come to the rescue. Their advice usually includes adopting the [Connextra user story format](https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/user-story-template/) (also called _role-feature-reason_). Sometimes the advice includes standards for acceptance criteria like using the [Gherkin syntax](https://cucumber.io/docs/gherkin/reference/). When the goal is **_writing_** better stories the result is often a large, overly complicated template to use in Jira.

<!--more-->

Advice like this article, [User Story Template: How to Write User Stories Efficiently](https://hygger.io/blog/user-story-template-how-to-write-it/) is all too common but sidesteps the real issue. I contend that the more boxes on a user story template or the more required data on a Jira input screen, the more time and money will be wasted on a symptom of the problem. As <NAME> states in the introduction of his book _User Story Mapping_, "Shared documents aren't shared understanding." A requirements document does a poor job of establishing a shared understanding. Even the ones that follow a standard template.

> Shared documents aren't shared understanding  
{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.07495656490444279, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 4.93519882179676, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 11, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 13, 'https://': 6, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 2, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
{'dir': 'git-commits-cleaned', 'id': '4932089', 'n_tokens_mistral': 1005, 'n_tokens_neox': 959, 'n_words': 516}