Story - Scaled Agile Framework (original) (raw)

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Stories act as a 'pidgin language,’ where both sides (users and developers) can agree enough to work together effectively.

- Bill Wake, co-inventor of Extreme Programming

Definition: Stories are short descriptions of a small piece of desired functionality written from the user’s perspective.

Summary

Stories are short, simple descriptions of functionality. They are told from the user’s perspective and written in simple language. They are the primary tool Agile Teams use to describe a small, vertical slice of intended system behavior. A story provides enough information for business and technical people to understand the intent. Details are deferred until the story is ready to be implemented. Through acceptance criteria and tests, stories become more specific, helping to ensure system quality.

What is a story?

A story describes a small piece of functionality that an Agile Team can finish in a few days or less. User stories outline the value to the end user. Enabler stories outline the necessary work of exploration, architecture, infrastructure, and compliance. Each story focuses on a specific behavior that can be developed in incremental steps to offer value to the user or the solution. Keeping stories small ensures they can be completed in a single iteration, allowing every iteration to deliver value.

SAFe describes four tiers of work items that detail functional system behavior: Epic, Capability, Feature, and Story. Collectively, they represent the solution’s intended behavior. The detailed implementation work is expressed through stories in the backlogs of the Agile Teams. Some stories emerge from business and enabler features in the ART Backlog, while others come from the team’s local context.

Last Update: 27 January 2025