The Process
With Agile development, everything revolves around getting work done as quickly as possible. We do that by breaking down the work into two pieces: Epics, and User Stories.
Epics
Epics are high level overviews that describe what the software is supposed to do. This might include mock ups of how the interface is supposed to look, or detail the requirements for searching. The easiest way to think of these are “features”. Below you can find a screenshot for what kind of information is collected when Epics are being written.
User Stories
Once the Epics have been determined, user stories are developed. These are broken down in such a way as to give us acceptance criteria. The three parts of a User Story are:
- Who The User Is
- What They Do
- Expected Result
This is represented like this:
As a _____ I want to _____ so that _____
This formula builds the acceptance criteria directly into the story, which helps ensure that time isn’t wasted going back-and-forth determining what behavior is expected for each action.