How do you prioritize and refine user stories and acceptance criteria in an agile team?

1 Understand the goals and vision

Before you start writing user stories and acceptance criteria, you need to have a clear understanding of the goals and vision of the product. What problem are you solving? Who are you solving it for? What are the benefits and outcomes you want to achieve? Having a product vision statement, a product roadmap, and a product backlog can help you align your user stories and acceptance criteria with the strategic direction and value proposition of the product.

2 Use the INVEST criteria

A good user story should be INVEST: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable. This means that each user story should be self-contained, flexible, meaningful, measurable, manageable, and verifiable. Using the INVEST criteria can help you prioritize and refine your user stories and acceptance criteria by ensuring that they are clear, concise, and consistent. You can use tools like story maps, user personas, and user journeys to help you create and organize your user stories.

3 Collaborate with the team and stakeholders

User stories and acceptance criteria are not written in isolation. They are the result of collaboration and communication between the product owner, the development team, and the stakeholders. You should involve them in the process of prioritizing and refining your user stories and acceptance criteria by using techniques like brainstorming, feedback sessions, story workshops, and reviews. This can help you gain insights, validate assumptions, resolve conflicts, and improve quality.

4 Prioritize based on value and effort

Once you have a set of user stories and acceptance criteria, you need to prioritize them based on their value and effort. Value refers to the benefit or impact that the user story will have on the users and the business. Effort refers to the time, resources, and complexity that the user story will require to implement. You can use methods like MoSCoW, Kano model, or WSJF to help you rank your user stories and acceptance criteria according to their value and effort.

5 Refine based on feedback and learning

User stories and acceptance criteria are not static. They are dynamic and evolve as you learn more about the product, the users, and the market. You should refine them based on feedback and learning from various sources, such as user testing, analytics, surveys, or reviews. You should also use agile ceremonies like sprint planning, daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives to review and update your user stories and acceptance criteria regularly.

6 Write clear and testable acceptance criteria

Acceptance criteria are the conditions that must be met for a user story to be considered done. They specify the expected behavior, functionality, and quality of the product. Writing clear and testable acceptance criteria can help you prioritize and refine your user stories by providing a clear definition of done, reducing ambiguity, and facilitating testing. You can use formats like Given-When-Then, SMART, or checklists to help you write your acceptance criteria.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?