How effective are your user stories? Agile is a pragmatic-approach mind-set. Scrum provides you a framework, but doesn't exactly tell you how to do it.

Do you want to deviate from “textbook” practices but ensure that you’ll still be Agile? This guide will show you how to practically create user stories in Scrum.

Are you running into these user story challenges where you:

• Keep missing out on requirements
• Struggle to write a story when there is a large amount of uncertainty
• Are unable to handle dependencies between stories
• Make overall development harder by leaving most of the work in one story
• Cannot figure out which story technique to apply in what context
• Are stressed out trying to keep up as every story is "high priority"

In this book, you will learn:

• Simple techniques to capture user stories...so a customer/user gets exactly what they want
• To split bigger stories...as these practical techniques will allow you to rapidly deliver in short sprints
• To set up story completion criteria...so there is no more guessing if it is done yet
• About just enough documentation...so you can add the right amount of detail
• To defer to last responsible moment...so you can add details at the right time
• To refine user stories...to help you continuously deliver high value to customer/user
• How to handle extremely complex stories...so you can reduce uncertainty
• How to plug the gaps...so you do not miss out on requirements
• The pitfalls and limitations.... so this will allow you to watch out when to not use user stories

You will also learn how to:

• Engage your team and avoid frequently shifting priorities
• Use practical techniques to right-size your stories so you get rapid feedback
• Use conversations that will allow you to avoid rote practices and build out better stories
• Refine product backlog that will help you be ready for next sprint
• Handle unknowns using a technique to develop new knowledge rather than new functionality