How To Split User Stories

Posted by Dan Puckett on Apr 18, 2011

Sections

Process & Practices

Topics

User Stories ,

Agile Techniques ,

Adoption ,

Project Management ,

Agile

Share |

RELATED Research

Many new Agile teams have difficulty splitting their user stories small enough to work well with Agile techniques. In several articles, members of the Agile community provide guidance on how to split user stories effectively.

Are there general guidelines we can follow when trying to split larger user stories into smaller ones? Rachel Davies recommends slicing each user story so as to produce software that:

1. works
2. delivers value
3. can potentially generate user feedback

Richard Lawrence provides these techniques he has found useful for splitting large user stories:

1. Divide a story into the workflow steps involved—perhaps putting a simple end-to-end case as one story, then having other steps in the workflow as their own separate stories.
2. Divide a story so each variation in business rules is its own story.
3. Divide a story into "implement the first [X]" and "implement the rest of the [X]s". This can be applied when the effort involved in implementing the first [X] will be much larger than the effort of implementing any of the subsequent [X]s.
4. When faced with a complex story, split off the simplest version of the story as a separate story.
5. Divide a story by the types of data it manipulates.
6. Divide a story by differentiating between a simple data entry method and a more complex one.
7. Shift performance considerations out of the current story into one or more new stories.
8. Divide a story along create-read-update-delete (CRUD) boundaries.
9. As a last resort, create a spike story to figure out how to implement the feature.

Rachel Davies provides more detail around how to split stories with regards to input/output data:

• You can make a story per input screen.
• You can make a story per enabled elements of an input screen.
• You can make a simple (not pretty) UI.
• You can make a command line interface.

In addition, Bob Hartman provides these techniques for splitting stories:

• In a story that involves multiple personas, divide it by persona.
• Divide a story so that the more-risky parts are separated from the less-risky parts.
• Divide a story to maximize the number of developers that can work on each story.
• Divide a story to help with testing.

What ways of splitting user stories have you found to be most useful?

RelatedVendorContent

Five Key Practices to Agile ALM

Agile Practices to Improve Project Management Organization (PMO) Effectiveness

Agile Maturity Model Applied to Building and Releasing Software

Agile assessments for your team

Agile workshops and training

Related Sponsor

Maximize your business-responsiveness with Mingle. Provide your global development team a shared space that adapts to the way they work.

1. Back to top

   Vertical Slices

   by Theron James

   www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/IIDII.pdf
   
   blogs.msdn.com/b/progressive_development/archiv...

   Reply

2. Back to top

   Does this get too fragmented?

   by Tormod Varhaugvik

   My worry is that requirements are long lasting. The development itsef is often less than 10% of the lifetime costs.
   What about maintenance for the last 90%?
   My comment at : tormodv.blogspot.com/2011/04/requirements-are-l...

   Reply

3. Back to top

   The simplest way to split user stories

   by George Dinwiddie

   blog.gdinwiddie.com/2011/05/01/splitting-user-s...
   
   Also listed there are some pointers to a few of the classic articles on splitting stories.

   Reply

4. Back to top

   More Story Splitting articles

   by Mark Levison

   agilepainrelief.com/notesfromatooluser/2010/09/... and
   
   agilepainrelief.com/notesfromatooluser/2010/12/...

   Reply

5. Back to top

   Acronyms supporting splitting

   by Thomas Karlsson

   Good post, it's interesting to get a collection of techniques on this challenging topic!
   On top of what's already been mentioned I recommend Bill Wake's INVEST acronym:
   xp123.com/articles/invest-in-good-stories-and-s...
   
   That is really helpful for slicing functionality. For situations when this is not enough I have created an additional acronym which might be helpful, Splitting User Stories using SOUND advice:
   agile-management.com/wordpress/splitting-user-s...

   Reply

6. Back to top

   Re: Acronyms supporting splitting

   by paulo caroli

   Great post!
   Here I give a sample and links on splitting CRUD stories
   agiletips.blogspot.com/2010/11/splitting-crud-s...

   Reply