What techniques can you use to identify the most important business goals for your user stories?

1 SMART criteria

One way to identify the most important business goals for your user stories is to use the SMART criteria. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. These criteria help you evaluate if your business goals are clear, quantifiable, realistic, aligned with the user needs and the product vision, and have a defined deadline. By applying the SMART criteria to your business goals, you can filter out the ones that are vague, unrealistic, or irrelevant, and focus on the ones that are meaningful and actionable.

3 Impact mapping

A third technique you can use to identify the most important business goals for your user stories is impact mapping. Impact mapping is a visual tool that helps you map out the relationships between your business goals, the actors involved, the impacts you want to achieve, and the deliverables you need to create. By using impact mapping, you can identify the assumptions and dependencies behind your business goals, the benefits and risks of pursuing them, and the user stories that support them. Impact mapping also helps you avoid scope creep and feature bloat, as you can trace back each user story to its corresponding business goal and impact.

4 Value proposition canvas

A fourth technique you can use to identify the most important business goals for your user stories is the value proposition canvas. The value proposition canvas is a tool that helps you design and test your product's value proposition, which is the promise of value you deliver to your users. The value proposition canvas consists of two parts: the customer profile and the value map. The customer profile helps you understand your users' needs, pains, and gains. The value map helps you define your product's features, pain relievers, and gain creators. By using the value proposition canvas, you can align your business goals with your users' problems and desires, and create user stories that address them.

5 Kano model

A fifth technique you can use to identify the most important business goals for your user stories is the Kano model. The Kano model is a framework that helps you classify your product's features and functionalities based on how they affect your users' satisfaction and loyalty. The Kano model distinguishes between five types of features: basic, performance, excitement, indifferent, and reverse. Basic features are the ones that are expected and required by the users, and without them the product is useless. Performance features are the ones that increase the users' satisfaction as they improve in quality and quantity. Excitement features are the ones that surprise and delight the users, and create a competitive edge for the product. Indifferent features are the ones that do not affect the users' satisfaction, either positively or negatively. Reverse features are the ones that decrease the users' satisfaction, and should be avoided or eliminated. By using the Kano model, you can identify the business goals that correspond to the different types of features, and prioritize them accordingly.

6 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?