1. Anatomy of a Good User Story
& Epics
by Julia Manning,PMP,CSM,CSP,ITIL

2. 3 W’s
Who?
Reference the role, system or person who needs the
outcome of the story.
What ?
Describe the need ,feature, functionality that desires will
be delivered by software or service.
Why?
Describe what the value is of the story. Reference the need,
feature or functionality that desires, what will be delivered
by software or service.
by Julia Manning,PMP,CSM,CSP,ITIL

3. Example User Story
• As a [type of user] I [want/can/am able to/need
to/etc.] so that [some reason].” Though that format
has its advantages, user stories can be in any format,
so long as the conversations surrounding the stories
occur.
• User stories come in different sizes. A small story,
called simply a “user story,” is one that is well
understood and can be implemented within a sprint—
something like: “As a manager, I want the monthly
sales report to be paginated so that I can quickly refer
to a specific part of the document.”
• More Story Information
by Julia Manning,PMP,CSM,CSP,ITIL

4. Defintion of Done & Acceptance
Criteria
• The story identifies when the work is
completed. For example a working product
DEMO.
• After the DEMO the Story Owner accepts that
the story meets the acceptance criteria.
by Julia Manning,PMP,CSM,CSP,ITIL

5. Epic’s
Large user stories are typically referred to as epics.
There's no magic threshold at which we call a
particular story an epic. It just means “big user
story.”
Epics generally take more than one or two sprints
to develop and test. They are usually broad in
scope, short on details, and will commonly need to
be split into multiple, smaller stories before the
team can work on them.
by Julia Manning,PMP,CSM,CSP,ITIL

6. Epic’s
Large user stories are typically referred to as epics.
There's no magic threshold at which we call a
particular story an epic. It just means “big user
story.”
Epics generally take more than one or two sprints
to develop and test. They are usually broad in
scope, short on details, and will commonly need to
be split into multiple, smaller stories before the
team can work on them.
by Julia Manning,PMP,CSM,CSP,ITIL