If you are following Agile or Scrum, you will often hear about User stories. Let’s understand what they are!

What are User Stories?

User Stories are short and simple description of a feature from an end-user perspective. It is a simplified version of a requirement which describes the type of user, what they want and why they want it.

How are User Stories different form Epic? 

Epics are generally large user stories covering many functionalities. It is too large to be completed into one iteration or one sprint, hence, it can be divided into multiple smaller user stories.

Examples of User Stories and Epic

Example of an Epic – 

• Create a login page.

Example of User Stories (broken down from the Epic example above) – 

• As a user, I want to be able to sign in using my user id and password.
• As a user, I want to be able to recover my password using “Forgot my Password” functionality.
• As a user, I want to be able to see an error, if I enter incorrect password.

Who writes User Stories?

Anyone in the team can write a user story. But, it is the responsibility of the Product Owner to make sure it is added to the Product Backlog.

When are the User Stories written?

They can be written at any time throughout the project and can be added to the Product Backlog. But, they can’t be worked upon in the ongoing sprint as the sprint tasks/items are locked before the sprint begins. However, they can be added to the Product Backlog at any time so that they can be picked up in the future sprints.

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