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Splitting User Stories

I’ve written about User Stories before and made available a handout that includes a page on splitting stories that, in addition to listing some splitting heuristics, includes several links to several lists of techniques for splitting stories.

What it doesn’t include is an even simpler way to split stories–the simplest way I’ve found yet.When doing Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD), we create examples that illustrate the functionality we want the software to have.  Each of these examples is, potentially, a separate story.  You can split a story by dividing these examples into two or more groups.  It’s that simple.

By the way, here are some other guides on splitting stories:

and the InfoQ article that triggered this post:

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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 1st, 2011 at 5:53 AM and filed under Tools and Techniques.
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Comments (13) to “Splitting User Stories”

  1. Pranjal R Nigam wrote:

    A very nice blog.

    Posted on 01-May-11 at 9:21 am | Permalink

  2. May 17 – Recommended Reading | Nicholas Muldoon wrote:

    […] Splitting User Stories – George Dinwiddie, May 2011 George provides a useful guide to assist with splitting user stories. More recently I have been trying to follow his suggestion of looking at the acceptance tests as individual stories. That approach seems to resonate with the engineers in the @GreenHopperTeam. […]

    Posted on 17-May-11 at 5:02 am | Permalink

  3. QuickLinks for May 2011 | (Agile) Testing wrote:

    […] Splitting User Stories […]

    Posted on 31-May-11 at 6:31 pm | Permalink

  4. Mark Levison wrote:

    Perhaps not as classic as the others but another pair of entries in the genre:

    http://agilepainrelief.com/notesfromatooluser/2010/09/story-slicing-how-small-is-enough.html and

    http://agilepainrelief.com/notesfromatooluser/2010/12/more-notes-on-story-splitting.html

    Posted on 07-Jul-11 at 10:33 pm | Permalink

  5. Guest post: Avoiding Iteration Zero - Scrumology wrote:

    […] that one thing, and slice it into thinner slices. Decide on the examples that represent acceptance of those slices. Some of the slices will have […]

    Posted on 17-Feb-12 at 3:49 am | Permalink

  6. How to Split User Stories wrote:

    […] = [];}George Dinwiddie proposes a list of material that should help you in the task of splitting user stories used to manage requirements in Agile approaches. In his own handout, he explains the difference […]

    Posted on 07-Mar-12 at 3:09 pm | Permalink

  7. neilkillick.com » Splitting user stories by the quality of solution wrote:

    […] reading about splitting user stories: http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/04/how-to-split-user-stories http://blog.gdinwiddie.com/2011/05/01/splitting-user-stories/ Have a great weekend everyone. Perhaps consider making the goal of your Sprint Planning meeting on […]

    Posted on 23-Nov-12 at 3:46 am | Permalink

  8. Splitting User Stories By The Quality Of The Solution | neilkillick.com wrote:

    […] http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/04/how-to-split-user-stories http://blog.gdinwiddie.com/2011/05/01/splitting-user-stories/ […]

    Posted on 07-Aug-13 at 4:53 am | Permalink

  9. George Dinwiddie wrote:

    Another good description of splitting user stories, Gerard Meszaros’ Storyotypes (http://storyotypespaper.gerardmeszaros.com/)

    Posted on 13-Aug-13 at 2:37 pm | Permalink

  10. ScrumMaster Tales – Story Splitting Fun | Agile Pain Relief wrote:

    […] http://www.richardlawrence.info/2009/10/28/patterns-for-splitting-user-stories/ http://agilepainrelief.com/notesfromatooluser/2010/12/more-notes-on-story-splitting.html http://www.agileforall.com/2009/12/10/new-to-agile-learn-how-to-split-stories/ http://lassekoskela.com/thoughts/7/ways-to-split-user-stories/ http://xp123.com/articles/twenty-ways-to-split-stories/ http://blogs.collab.net/agile/2012/06/20/15-ways-to-split-an-epic-a-team-exercise/ http://blog.gdinwiddie.com/2011/05/01/splitting-user-stories/ […]

    Posted on 14-May-15 at 9:40 pm | Permalink

  11. George Dinwiddie wrote:

    Now available in French: http://www.les-traducteurs-agiles.org/user%20stories/2015/05/17/fractionner-les-user-stories.html

    Posted on 17-May-15 at 12:32 pm | Permalink

  12. Splitting User Stories By The Quality Of Solution – Neil Killick's blog — Shifting conventional thinking to the right wrote:

    […] http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/04/how-to-split-user-stories http://blog.gdinwiddie.com/2011/05/01/splitting-user-stories/ […]

    Posted on 07-Apr-16 at 7:47 am | Permalink

  13. George Dinwiddie wrote:

    I’ve updated some of the links. It’s amazing how web pages move over the course of 9 years.

    Posted on 18-Nov-20 at 5:44 pm | Permalink

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