Why Should we Follow the User Story Template? (By Gulistan)

Why should we follow the User Story template?

Created by
Gulistan Fatima
Last updated Sep 04, 2019

What is a User Story ?
Have you ever thought what is a User Story? Why is it called a User Story and not a requirement when essentially what it is does is just gather requirement.
As the name suggests, the end value the user receives from the feature is what each User Story is attempting to deliver hence ‘User Story’. Its for the User.
So shouldn’t we give the much needed time to understand the user?
That is exactly what we are doing by following the User story template .

User Story template
part 1- As a Who?
part 2- I can <(do something, desired action)> What?
part 3- so that Why?

Every story has essentially 3 parts each answering who ? what ? and why? respectively.
Part 1 of the story answers ‘who’, part 2 answers ‘what’ and part 3 answers ‘why’.

The most common objection I hear is that there is not enough time to write the User Story in this format.
Yes it takes time and if we are not giving that time then we are taking the risk of not delivering the right functionality to the user. Can we afford that risk? No. but we still do and as a result we spent more time in fixing the bug and understanding the functionality. Isn’t it super important to understand the User in the first place?

Other common anti-pattern I see is that the last part ‘so that’ is skipped altogether.
The argument is that its just a repetition of part 1 or part 2.
It is not-if it is properly formatted. To be continued in my next blog….