Collaboration & Process › Agile & Delivery Process

User Story

"As a user, I want… so that…": a requirement from the user's point of view.

Also known as: user stories, story

A user story describes a small piece of functionality from the point of view of the person who uses it. The usual template has three parts: who the user is, what they want to do, and why it matters to them.

As a returning customer,
I want to save my card for next time,
so that I don't have to type it at every checkout.

The “so that” part is the one people skip, and it’s the one that helps most. It explains the value, which lets the team pick a better solution than the one the story first suggests.

A story is a conversation starter, not a complete specification. Add acceptance criteria, the conditions that show the story is done, during backlog refinement. Large stories that won’t fit in one sprint belong under an epic.

The classic mistake is writing the template without thinking about the user. “As a system, I want to store a card token” describes a task, not a user need. If you can’t name the user or the reason, ask before you start the work.