User story
A short description of a user role, a need and the goal behind it.
What is a user story?
A user story briefly describes who needs something, what they need and why. It helps discuss and prioritise a product feature from the user’s perspective. A common sentence pattern connects role, wish and goal. That wording alone is not a complete business or technical specification.
In a fictional portal, a story reads: “As a service employee, I want to filter open requests by status so that I can inform waiting customers in a targeted way.” Expected filter results and behaviour for an empty result list are then clarified as checkable outcomes. These criteria complement the conversation. A card titled “build a filter” does not explain the benefit. Scrum requires Product Backlog items but does not require every item to be a user story.
Sources
Related terms
- Product BacklogThe ordered, continually evolving collection of improvements needed for a product.
- Acceptance criteriaAcceptance criteria state verifiable outcomes used to assess whether a requirement meets its intended need.
- Definition of DoneThe shared description of the quality conditions a completed product Increment must meet.
- Product discoveryInvestigating needs, constraints and risky assumptions before settling on a product solution.
- Product OwnerThe person accountable in Scrum for product value, the Product Goal and effective backlog management.
- ScrumA framework for working together incrementally on complex product challenges.
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