User Stories | Project Success

The Three Cs for User Story Creation

The three Cs are a great way to remember to collaborate and create items to work on in an Agile team. They stand for the Card, the Conversation and the Confirmation.

The Card

This is the customer requirement, often with "Acceptance Criteria" for what needs to be done. It is written on a card as a User Story, and often shown on a Kanban Board.

The Conversation

A Conversation between: customers or users, developers and testers – our “triad” or “three amigos” – to work through the requirements, solution, and acceptance test criteria.

The Confirmation

Confirmation that the item meets the requirements. The Customer can sign off the requirements, the team can Showcase the increment at the Sprint Review, and the Scrum Master can ensure a Definition of Done is in place for the team.

A Definition of Done is the criteria we have to meet for the card to be seen as "Complete". It might include developing it, testing it, demonstrating it and signing off on it.

Learn Project Management and earn 35 PDUs, Learn Agile and earn 21 PDUs, save yourself 100s of hours with the Excel and PowerPoint templates below.

You can see what people are saying about David McLachlan here: REVIEWS

The Ultimate PMP Project Management Prep Course (35 PDUs)

Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP 21 PDUs)

The Complete Agile Course: PMI-ACP (21 PDUs), Coaching, Jira and MORE!

50 Project Management Templates Gantt Chart Risk Matrix and more Excel

50+ Project Management Templates in Excel and PowerPoint (Gantt Chart, Risk Matrix and more!)

Pre-made Project Management PLAN Template: Save 100 HOURS!

Secret Game #1

Click Me!

A Great Way to Create Agile User Stories

INVEST is an acronym that helps us when creating user stories. In an Agile team, you’ll typically get together in a “Triad” or “The Three Amigos” of the Customer, Developer and Tester, but it can be anyone who needs to have an input.

INVEST stands for:

Independent, Negotiable, Valuable (or Vertical), Estimable, Small and Testable.

Independent

The User Story should be a usable piece that can operate on its own, independent to others, that we can demonstrate at the end of the Sprint.

Negotiable

The User Story should be able to be negotiated in our out of the sprint, or even out of the Product Backlog if it is no longer valuable. We should be able to negotiate the requirements against the solution.

Valuable

The item should have customer value, and be able to be demonstrated.

Estimable

The item’s effort should be able to be estimated by the team.

Small

It should be small enough to be completed in a Sprint (usually around 2 weeks)