Two of my colleagues came across a CRUD (Create / Read / Update / Delete) story, and asked me for advice on how to convince people on splitting stories.
I typically prefer to have smaller stories. In this case, instead of having one CRUD story, I would have one for Read, another for Create/Update and a story for Delete.
Here is an example.
As a online store owner, I want to Create / Read / Update / Delete products so that I can offer my customers the top rated products
Instead of having this CRUD story, I split it like this (I will add a few sample tasks for making it more illustrative):
As a online store owner, I want to Read (view) my products so that I can review what is current available on my site
Sample tasks:
- Create DB table
- Populate table with a few sample data
- Create select DB script
- Create for viewing my products
- Create automated functional tests for viewing functionality
As a online store owner, I want to Create / Update a product so that I can offer my customers the top rated products
Sample tasks:
- Create insert / update DB script
- Create UI for create / update a product
- Create automated functional tests for adding product functionality
- Create automated functional tests for updating product functionality
As a online store owner, I want to Delete a product so that I can offer my customers the top rated products
Sample tasks:
Create DB table for deleted products
- Create delete DB operation
- Create UI for deleting a product
- Create automated functional tests for the delete functionality
This sample is very specific for CRUD stories. There are other ways for splitting stories.
Mike Cohn’s book, User Stories Applied is a must read on this subject.
Splitting (or deciding the size of a story) is controversial. Mike Cohn have popularized the INVEST acronym: Independent. Negotiable. Valuable. Estimatable. Sized appropriately. Testable
agree with the S in the acronym listed above: Sized appropriately.
But when I first read the INVEST acronym, the S was for small. I know Sized appropriately is not very specific, but it is more realistic. It is not about being small; it is about being sized appropriately. For this consider several reasoning on splitting your stories. The links below have more on this subject:
https://lassekoskela.com/thoughts/7/ways-to-split-user-stories/
https://agilecoach.typepad.com/agile-coaching/2010/09/ideas-for-slicing-user-stories.html
