The Key Factors Associated With User Stories In Scrum – Get Your User Story Basics Right Before Proc

By Author: Mrugesh panchal
Total Articles: 48
Comment this article

When the product backlog contains a large number of user stories or product backlog items, it becomes very difficult and cumbersome to manage it in a proper manner. In scrum, the product backlog does not have a static existence. It is required to change, and re prioritizes the backlog from time to time. There are several reasons why this is necessary, but the bottom line is a lot of time and resources are wasted if the backlog grooming activity is not carried out regularly, or in the correct manner. Before exploring the various methods used during the grooming sessions, it is important to know about the key factors associated with user stories in scrum methodology.

Prioritizing user stories on the basis of their business values
Besides forming the main substrate, or the base, of product features and functionality the product backlog also represents the business value linked with the user stories, which constitute the product. Each product backlog item has a certain business value ...
... attached to it, and the product owner, sometimes with help from the scrum master, carefully arranges the user stories in the order of their importance. During a sprint planning meeting, items in the top of the product backlog having greater business values are taken up for development purposes. The user stories are developed during the daily sprint. The product backlog also represents the urgency of how product backlog items are to be developed.

User stories should be prioritized based on their importance in the product backlog. In addition, the backlog grooming sessions should be carried out on a regular basis to maintain the project value, and streamline the development activity during the sprints.

Assigning story points to the user stories
In scrum, a story point is an arbitrary unit of measurement used to determine the importance of a user story. As stated before, each user story has a certain business value attached to it. Story points are used to determine the extent of importance of the user stories in scrum methodology. It is very important to assign a unit of measurement to the user stories. This is very much required, since the items have to be estimated in terms of their importance. The estimation is required while creating the burn down charts in which the velocity, or the rate at which user stories are developed during the sprints is calculated. Burn down charts are used for estimation purposes in scrum. They represent the rate at which the sprint is delivering shippable items – the main reason why managements and stakeholders opt for scrum. There are several methods of creating an estimation. The main aspect is each user story should be assigned story points.

User stories should be assigned proper story points based upon any one of the several methods such as the Fibonacci series, poker points, etc.

Determining correct business values for the story points
The existence of the product backlog becomes meaningless if the user stories do not have any business value attached to the product backlog items. If such were the case, the backlog would merely exist as a master list or a “bill of material” for the product. It is not just important to link up a certain business value to the user story, but perhaps what is more important is the business value should be correctly evaluated and determined. Generally, the stakeholders determine the importance of the user stories, or the functionality to be developed by the team. The product owner represents the interest of the stakeholders, so in reality, he or she actually carried out the prioritization activity. If the business value is not properly calculated, the scrum project will fail to deliver the projected deliverables, or the product may fail in the market when it is launched.

Calculate and determine the correct business value of the user stories using a reliable product estimation method. The stakeholders may also carry out the estimation based upon their experience levels and market knowledge.

The product backlog forms the base of all scrum related activities, and therefore it is essential to understand the significance of product backlog items or the user stories, and gain an insight regarding the key factors which govern how and why the user stories should exist in scrum. If the importance of product backlog items is properly understood, the remaining aspects pertaining to scrum can be comprehended, and it becomes easier to implement scrum in a project.