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Summary: The user story bible
Review: '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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Summary: Agile Requirements with details you may need.
Review: Agile software development uses light-weight requirements, often called User Stories. Mike's book shows you different ways of writing those stories, and of estimating them and scheduling them for implementation. He starts at the basics, and continues to build up information until he has almost certainly covered more than you'll likely need. You'll have a good understanding of what to do now, and what to do when and if further needs arise. Recommended.
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Summary: Are User Stories the 13th XP Practice?
Review: Communication, simplicity, feedback and courage! Yes, I can confirm that Mike Cohn succeeds in presenting User Stories that build on these XP values. User Stories could even be considered the 13th XP practice, because without stories, it's difficult to "get away with" the other 12 XP practices.
The book is well structured and easy to read. The golden nuggets of the book are definitely the six attributes for creating good stories. Experienced with Agile development, I immediately used the attributes (with the appropriate acronym INVEST) with great satisfaction in conversations with my customers to identify and analyse stories. It was refreshing to find out how easy it is to explain User Stories within 20 minutes. You only need a whiteboard, and INVEST as your checklist. But above all, because INVEST is lightweight and flexible it challenges you and your customer to create great stories. And bottom line, people make great stories; procedures and tools are only enablers, as they should be!
This book is a must read for business analysts and developers on an Agile development team. I highly recommend this book also to all stakeholders who need, or want, to be aware of what the Agile software development approach means on a day-to-day basis for delivering non-trivial software solutions.
Overall, Agile development is always focused on maximizing your Return On Investment with software development. Therefore I consider this book as a minimum investment to ensure maximum return from each person involved in creating successful stories!
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Summary: Rapid development cycles using user stories
Review: Devising the specifications for a software project can be a squishy affair. A programmer may not be skilled at eliciting requirements from users. This can be very much a qualitative, fuzzy interaction. Far removed from writing of code, where one can usually objectively measure the functionality.But Cohn points out that the users' needs cannot be ignored for the project to be successful. He says that in the drawing up of these needs, the effort should be equally influenced by both the users and the programmers. An imbalance here can adversely affect the usefulness of the project. He devotes the book towards what he says the group should draw up. User stories. These are functionalities needed by the eventual users. He considers user stories to be of lesser scope than use cases, where the latter may be better known to most. The main merit of a user story seems to be that it involves a "bite-sized" programming effort. He suggests less than 10 days of development. So that a team could quickly iterate through several development cycles, with the cost of a bad choice of user story being small.
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Summary: A valuable book that supports any agile methodology
Review: Every agile methodology advocates iterative, story-driven (although they may call them features or backlog items) development and so one might assume that an entire book on user stories and iterative planning would be redundant-not so. Mike has added both a breadth and depth to the body of information on this subject as his obvious practical experience shines through. Both little tidbits, like constraining estimates to specific pre-defined values, and responses to frequently asked questions (for example the best contrasting of use cases versus stories that I've seen) give Mike's book significant value for anyone practicing agile development of any flavor.
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Summary: Such a modest title
Review: Everyone has struggled with requirements management; there is even an industry that provides fancy tools for it. In this book, Mike puts them out of business. Using 3x5 cards, common sense, and team work, Mike shows how to how to manage requirements in a straightforward way that minimizes hoopla and maximizes value. Mike doesn't tell us how to do it, he shows us how to do it. And, without making a big deal out of it, Mike shows us how to manage our requirements while introducing acceptance test driven development. When I got done with Mike's book, I knew how to manage requirements with minimum overhead, to only manage the requirements that were important at that time, and to implement requirements traceability. Quite a bit for such an unassuming title. Read this book, give it to your teams, and watch common sense grow in your organization.
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Summary: Agile Requirements Management Demystified
Review: Finally a book that demystifies Agile Requirements Management. In particular demystifying myths about User Stories themselves. The book puts together ideas from other books on the subject : Writing Effective Use Cases and Requirements by Collaboration :
Workshop for defining needs. This book not only explains properly the concepts but gives you practical advice on how you could use user stories on your projects. I particularly liked the chapter : Using Stories with Scrum. Reading this book was truly an enjoyable and learning experience.
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Summary: Sensible Requirements Analysis - Help is Here
Review: How hard can it be to write Stories? The answer seems to be both "pretty simple" and "kind of tricky". Writing short sentences is a skill many of us have mastered by now, but working with people is the challenging part of any job. How many projects have delivered exactly what the Customer *specified*, but not quite what they need? Mike teaches us to keep our Stories simple enough that the team can really communicate with the Customer, responding to the complexities they express as a project progresses. The book is practical and addresses not just the practice of User Stories, but also how to plan for their use and manage them within different kinds of projects. It includes an introduction to Agile approaches like Extreme Programming (XP) and Scrum, but does not presume that all teams must work in this manner. Cohn's writing style is crystal clear. The layout of the book is superb, and the material is well developed to make the most of this structure, with short sections clearly titled. While readable as a training manual, the detailed table of contents also makes it valuable as a reference book. For Agile teams, this book provides a condensation of valuable experience, and practical advice. And if your team is stuck in analysis paralysis, spinning to refine and refine requirements, this book may provide the "aha" you are looking for.
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Summary: A Great Requirement Management Book
Review: I am a professional IT consultant, particularly providing agile methodology consulting. I have a lot of books on requirement management(analysis/gathering/etc). This book comes as one of the best three books of the kind.
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Summary: A must-have for those new to XP!
Review: I was once part of a new XP project where the users were very confused as to how to write a user story, having written nothing but detailed requirements their entire lives. The developers, also new to XP, didn't completely comprehend that they were to actually work with and talk to the users to elicit further details. Oh, if only I had had this book then! I would have purchased a copy for every user and every developer! There is a huge mental shift that has to take place when embracing agile methodologies, and Mike Cohn's book is an excellent catalyst for that change, making it a less painful transformation for those players involved. Cohn even spells out each group's responsibilities at the end of every chapter -- there's no ambiguity around who's supposed to do what. There are lots of examples that are easily understood, and the layout provides you with the information you and your team need in a logical sequence. Chapter 4 has a fabulous section called "Story Writing Workshop" that again provides that step-by-step hand-holding that first-timers need. I highly recommend this book. It's an excellent primer on the process of defining requirements in an agile environment.
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