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54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The user story bible, July 25, 2004
This review is from: User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development (Paperback)
'User Stories Applied' was a book that long stood on my Amazon wish list with a 'must have' rating. I'm not disappointed. I loved the book. Now let me explain why.
First of all, running the planning aspect of an XP project, for example, well is essential for reaping the benefits of agile software development. Yet, relatively little has been written to guide practitioners in doing that. I, for example, have made all the mistakes Cohn enumerates in the chapters for guiding the user towards writing *good* user stories (usually more than once). These sorts of things make you realize you shouldn't put the book on the shelf to gather dust! The author doesn't cover just writing good user stories, but the whole spectrum from putting together the customer team to estimating stories to discussing the stories to writing acceptance tests for the stories.
Second, it's a pleasure to read. The structure makes sense, each chapter is followed by a useful summary, and there's a set of questions -- along with answers -- to make sure you understood what the chapter talked about. Usually these kinds of Q&A sections simply force me to skip them over. The questions in this book did not. I read each and every one of them and I think there was only one set of questions that I did 'pass' with the first try, usually having forgotten some rather important aspects to consider (concrete evidence of their usefulness to me). To finish, the last part of the book, an example project, nicely ties together all the threads.
As usual, there were some things I experienced not so well. I believe the chapter on applying user stories with Scrum could've been left out without breaking the plot. Also, I think a typical user wouldn't have been bothered about dropping the appendix introducing Extreme Programming.
In summary, this is the book to get if you're involved with user stories. I had to pause reading every few pages to scribble down some specific tips. I'm confident that you will too.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally! Practical advice on writing user stories, and more, March 14, 2004
This review is from: User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development (Paperback)
This excellent book is a must-have for anyone on an agile team - developers, testers, business experts, analysts - and for anyone who struggles with requirements, planning, or estimating on any software project. User Stories Applied is easy to read and digest. As the title suggests, its techniques are easy to apply and deliver huge value. Each chapter summarizes developer and customer responsibilities, and has questions whose answers are provided in an appendix. The book is full of real-life, concrete examples, allowing you to learn from the successes and failures of others. This book will give you many tools to help your projects succeed. Just a few of the most valuable topics:
When are user stories too big, too small, too detailed, too general, too open ended, when are they not user stories, and how to correct all these.
Why use user stories.
How to handle requirements for infrastructure, performance, qualitative aspects, UI.
How to ask questions to elicit requirements.
How to cope when you don't have `on-site customers'.
Practical ways to estimate stories.
Monitoring velocity and progress.
When to keep and when to discard artifacts. Mike explores the differences between stories and other techniques for delivering requirements: IEEE 380, use cases, scenarios. He points out many positive side effects of user stories, such as encouraging participatory design and tacit knowledge accumulation. I particularly like that the book emphasizes the team's responsibility to successfully complete each iteration. I enjoy Mike's illuminating bits of wisdom, such as the "everything takes 4 hours" example. I love the comprehensive example in Part IV. No matter what your level of experience, you'll put the ideas in this book to immediate and productive use.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but next is better, January 11, 2007
This review is from: User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development (Paperback)
This book has some good stuff in it, especially the INVEST criteria for a good Story. But as far as practical application, Mike's other book, Agile Estimating and Planning, is better.
If you are a business or requirements analyst or a Product Owner, get this one. If you are a ScrumMaster, get both.
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