Guest Book Review: “User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development” by Mike Cohn

by Jason Brett

As a <type of user> I want <some goal> so that <some reason>.

Whether you are new to story-driven software development or have been managing products or development with user stories for a decade, “User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development” (Mike Cohn) is a great read.

I’m personally new to writing user stories, so I dove into Cohn’s book from a relatively fresh perspective, and found the entire book highly digestible. Mr. Cohn makes no assumptions about the readers level of expertise or familiarity with Agile methods. At the same time, he writes in a way that gives the reader credit for being intelligent and purposeful.

The book is broken into 3 parts:

Part 1 covers the basics of user stories and so much more. Cohn goes into a well paced discussion of the roles of each member of the agile team at each step of the process. Not only does he dissect the stories themselves, commenting on size and scope of stories, but Cohn pays a great deal of attention to cataloging and working with an appropriate variety of user roles, working with user proxies, acceptance tests, and an exceedingly valuable chapter discussing guidelines of good stories.

Part 2 continues the examination of the user story from the perspective of estimating and planning, stepping deftly from release to iteration, taking care to discuss monitoring and measurement of the release and iteration’s progress.

Finally, in Part 3, the Cohn ties everything together with an in-depth example and a well organized discussion of a variety of topics that naturally emerge in a business environment when applying user stories to an agile development framework. He spends a chapter specifically on user stories with Scrum, and another excellent chapter on “A Catalog of Story Smells.” This chapter provides a great reality check for anyone trying to detect and deal with potential team challenges when user stories may seem to be at the center of the discussion.

What stands out to me most about “User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development” is not only it’s apparent status as the definitive work on User Stories, but it’s effective introduction to Agile software development from the Product Management perspective. This is a book that I think exceeds its purpose in that regard.

I read this book as an experienced product manager who is new to Agile and Scrum. It has been an invaluable resource to me in that role. What I appreciate even more about Cohn’s work is that after reviewing the table of contents for this review, I can see myself re-reading the book annually (for at least for the next couple of years) and gleaning new insights to help strengthen my process and products.

No matter what your role in an Agile organization, be it product manager, product owner, scrum master or marketing manager, I suspect this book will provide significant insights into your company’s development process that can do nothing but serve you well.

Jason Brett is a Product Manager at Silverpop Systems, Inc, Founder of ProductCamp Atlanta, and currently sits on the board of the TAG Product Management Society. Jason should blog at his own website http://www.jasonbrett.me, but rarely does. You can, however, follow him at http://www.twitter.com/jbrett. Be sure and leave an @ reply to say hi!

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