产品 managers are expected to cultivate and maintain relationships with numerous people during the development process. The most intimate of these, 然而, will be with the product user. You should know them inside out: who they are, their preferences, and their needs. One way to develop and maintain this relationship is by writing 用户故事.

Just like manifestoes and vision documents, 用户故事 are an integral part of 产品开发. Good 用户故事 are the key to driving efficient planning and delivery, 团队参与, and customer satisfaction. Vague 用户故事 often indicate that the team will struggle to complete tasks further down the line—something I have witnessed often in my role as a 产品经理.

My involvement in successful startups—and some that have failed—has shown me firsthand the importance of taking the time to craft quality 用户故事. This guide will help you and your team master each element and write quality 用户故事 time and time again.

什么是用户故事?

A user story is a small increment of the product represented in terms of the value it will offer to the end user. 一组用户描述 创造史诗, and a single product can comprise multiple epics. A user story can be broken down further into tasks that more accurately reflect the work and outline how the story will be completed. User stories generally employ the formula User – Functionality – Benefit, which can be applied effectively to most industries and businesses.

通常, 产品经理 is responsible for writing 用户故事, but occasionally this may fall to the 产品负责人, Scrum master, or engineering manager. Ideally, every user story will be reviewed by the person, or people, who will undertake the work.

What Are the Benefits of a Good 用户故事?

A good user story has several benefits for the 团队与产品:

• Defining the “who” and writing from the user’s perspective ensures that focus is maintained on the customer, rather than on what the team wants or prefers.
• Defining the “what” clarifies the criteria for the person completing the task, known as the doer. Anything that’s not in the story can be considered out of scope.
• Defining the “why” motivates the doer by helping them understand the impact the deliverable will have on the user’s life.
• Defining user value can help identify a less-beneficial feature before work on it begins—and resources are potentially wasted.

What Does a Good 用户故事 Look Like?

If, 例如, you are building a house for your customer, one of your stories would be about creating the enclosing walls. A bad user story might say “I need walls”—identifying the “what” but nothing more. A better one would be: “作为房主, I want my house to have enclosing walls to keep out the elements, and so the roof doesn’t fall on my head.“我相信, 虽然, that if a user story is truly fulfilling its purpose, it should clearly and concisely answer all of the following questions:

• 用户是谁??
• 用户想要什么? 为什么 does the user want this?
• How should the engineering team interpret this story?
• Does this story depend on another story being completed beforehand?
• Does the completion of this story enable another story in the backlog?
• 范围是什么.e., what are the minimum criteria)?
• 这个故事有多大.e., where does it fall on the estimation scale)?

This is the template I use—it has evolved with my product management knowledge and worked well for me for many years:

A Common 用户故事 Myth

When it comes to judging whether 用户故事 are good or bad, there is a pervasive myth that I want to dispel.

Many people believe that a user story should be completed in a 单一的冲刺, and, if it isn’t, it was a bad user story. 事实并非如此. 当然, it is preferable that a user story gets completed in a sprint (and this should be achievable), but the team’s bandwidth and external factors may impact the amount of work that can be done—and this will vary from sprint to sprint. 也, estimates generally assume that every development team member has the same skill level across all domains; the fact is, it will take less time for a more experienced engineer to complete a task than a junior engineer.

You shouldn’t try to craft short 用户故事 just so that they will be completed quickly; rather, your user story should seek to represent a logical increment of value delivered. Don’t let a schedule dictate your creation of a compelling user story.

Keep the User Front and Center in Your Mind

I find projects are most enjoyable and most successful when I am confident in my 用户的知识—you can learn more about my experiences on my 个人博客. Whether I’m pitching new features or deciding on the scope of delivery with my team, knowing what the user would say is the most reliable way to test my vision. 它是, 然而, easy to lose touch with the user—and therefore the “why”—if I’m not regularly thinking of them. This is true for the majority of 产品经理s whose focus is often pulled to other tasks and duties. Writing good 用户故事 can help you and your team members maintain that image of the user in your mind, and even enhance your relationship with them.