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INTERVIEW QUESTION:

Describe the life cycle of a User Story?

Posted by Chris Adams

Article Rating // 63114 Views // 0 Additional Answers & Comments

Categories: Business Analysis, Use Cases, Agile Methods, SDLC, Process, and Methodologies, Elicitation (BABOK KA), Testing & Quality Assurance (QA)

ANSWER

User Stories are used by agile methodologies to capture the functionality that a system or software should support.  For details about what a user story is and how to write one reference What are User Stories.

At the beginning of a project user stories are identified and developed in a story writing workshop – a brainstorming session in which the agile team comes up with as many user stories as possible (the agile team commonly includes some combination of customers, product manager, developers, testes, etc.). Each story is sized and prioritized for the first time.  This prioritized list creates the Product Backlog (Release Backlog).  During the workshop the team selects an iteration length (usually between 1 and 4 weeks) and also the rate at which they will be able to complete user stories (call the velocity), both of which become important when determining how to schedule user stories later in the process.

During the iteration planning process, the user stories contained in the product/release backlog are segmented into iterations or sprints.  The user stories for the first sprint make up the sprint backlog.

Once the first iteration is ready to kickoff, conversations begin for each user story between members of the agile team.  The user stories get updated with details of the conversation, captured in the form of acceptance tests.
 
The user stories can be updated at any point as needed up until the iteration coding has been completed.  

If a user story cannot be completed during the iteration for some unforeseen reason, it is returned back to the product backlog and rescheduled for another iteration.

Many agile methods call for discarding user stories once they have been coded and implemented.  However, agile methods are flexible and adaptive, so the determination of whether to save and maintain user stories typically varies from company to company.  

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Chris Adams
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Do your homework prior to the business analysis interview!

Having an idea of the type of questions you might be asked during a business analyst interview will not only give you confidence but it will also help you to formulate your thoughts and to be better prepared to answer the interview questions you might get during the interview for a business analyst position.  Of course, just memorizing a list of business analyst interview questions will not make you a great business analyst but it might just help you get that next job.

 



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