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the Ten commandments of User Stories

An interesting thought came to mind when I was explaining User Stories to one of the team I am coaching. There are some guiding principles and practices that we must follow to be successful in writing and executing the User Stories. These are what I call commandments of writing a User Story.

What do we mean by Commandments? Let’s first look at the definition of “Commandment”.
The commandments could be a religious or moral imperatives; they act as “guiding lighthouse” to a purpose, and you hope to live by those commandments to reach certain purpose in life. In essence, they are guiding principles for individuals you hope to live by.

Similarly, in Agile projects, the purpose is to deliver business value; in small increments with each iteration. User Story is the nucleus of Agile project and success of the project heavily depends on them. I believe there are “Ten Commandments of User Stories” that will help any team venturing on the Agile journey and guide them to success.

So, here they are: the Ten commandments of User Stories

  1. Thou must deliver Business value
  2. Thou must prioritize User Stories based on Business Value (by Product Owner) and Team must take collective ownership
  3. Thou must be validation-centric
  4. Thou must be “Done Done Done”
  5. Thou must have 3Cs
  6. Thou must be Cross-functional (California roll)
  7. Thou must INVEST in User Stories (the six attributes)
  8. Thou must Size and Estimate (using Story points)
  9. Thou must Swarm (and complete few stories at a time)
  10. Thou must post Story Burnup chart
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#makeTheShift: Start Creating VALUE

#makeTheShift – Finishing Work and Start Creating Value

#makeTheShift

Stop starting too much work, Start creating VALUE

Too often we have too many things ‘in flight‘. With the computers in our palms and pockets, we are taking multi-tasking to the extreme! Start this new year with a promise to yourself: Promise not to start more work. Instead, shift the focus on finishing the work and creating Value.

It doesn’t matter how much work you have on your plate or how busy you are. What matters is how much Value you are creating for your customers. Adopt a Work in Progress (WIP) limit for yourself and adhere to the limit.

You will be amazed as to how much MORE you will accomplish in the new year with this formula!

{Adopt + Adhere } to WIP limit = Amazing Accomplishments! #makeTheShift pic.twitter.com/sWuSsK1eKL Share on X

Being an Agilist, I strongly believe in continuous improvement. We all can be better at what we are doing. We can use the ‘state’ where we are as a baseline, and find ways to improve and become better at what we do. This is a series of Photo/Blog posts that will touch on the topic of ‘Improving ourselves’, on Productivity Hacks, the tips, tools, and/or techniques that can put us on a lane of ‘hyper Productivity‘. My goal is not to radically change things overnight, or I am not looking for a big bang change, but rather I am looking for the incremental improvements.

This is first tip comes from a book titled The Rich Employee by James Altucher. 

Every day focus on 1% improvement of what I call the daily practice.@jaltucher The Rich Employee #getHyper Share on X

After all, (agile) transformation is a journey, and one or two changes alone can not make it happen. My goal here is to provide you those catalysts that will cause a chain of (positive) change. These catalyst will help you change the mind set to the one that is continuously looking for value, opportunities for improving and eliminating (or at a minimum, minimizing) waste.

So, buckle up, and get ready to get on hyper productivity land! Let’s #getHyper!