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When is the right time to create user stories.

Last post 06:09 pm August 1, 2017 by Ian Mitchell
2 replies
Prakash Dayani
01:07 pm August 1, 2017

HI,

While i am preparing for a certification , i would like to get some clarity form the masters. What i really want to know is what is the right  time to create the user stories.  If we have gone through a process where we have created a number of epics and its time to break the epics into user stories. Now my question is that do we write the user stories for the entire and then prioritize the product backlog or do we write / elaborate user stories only for the points that are to be developed during a sprint and while the Scrum team is developing the tasks, teh product owner works on the remaining user stories for the next sprint.

Nikolaos Friligkos
02:56 pm August 1, 2017

Hi Prakash,

Is there a product vision and a product roadmap in place? Moreover, what is the value of writing an exhaustive list of user stories/requirements upfront? Keep in mind that a User Story is a reminder for the needed conversation between Product Owner and Dev Team and it should intentionally leave space for this conversation to take place.

When it comes to Product Backlog management I prefer to follow the DEEP approach as described by Roman Pichler: you can find an article about it here.

Ian Mitchell
06:09 pm August 1, 2017

As long as the epics have been estimated, and the Product Backlog captures the amount of work which is currently thought to remain, then user stories may be refined on a just-in-time basis. It is reasonable to expect the work at the top of the backlog, which is closer at hand, to be refined to a more detailed level of granularity than the work which is further away. 

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