Exploring the Contrast between User Story Linking and User Story Creation as a child

In Agile methodologies, there are specific practices regarding the management and organization of user stories, notably concerning user story linking and creating stories as a child. Understanding this concept is vital for teams seeking to optimize their development workflows and foster better collaboration. In this article, we'll dissect the disparity between user story linking and creating stories as a child, examining how each approach offers unique benefits and impacts Agile teams in a short summary.

In Jira, linking? a user story to an epic entail organizing and structuring stories ?within a project management process. In general, an epic is a large body of work that can be divided into smaller user stories, a functional representation of business requirement for easier management.

Linking a user story to an epic gives an understanding of setting up a connection between the specific functional requirement, technical requirement, or feature described in the user story and the goal of the epic. This makes it easier to organize, prioritize, and track user stories or work items with in a project.

Creating a user story as a child on the other hand usually means dividing a larger user story into smaller ones from the parent, in the form of more detailed work items. This is being done to provide more granular information and allow for a better understanding of the work required to complete the overall user story. Child user stories are often linked back to their parent epic to ensure traceability and that all activities/tasks contribute to the overall goal defined by the parent epic.

Establishing these connections provides the team, scrum master, product owner, Change Management team with visibility into progress, shows interdependencies, and ensures that every task aligns harmoniously with the project's overarching objectives.

For example, a scrum team is working on a new e-commerce platform. They have received an initiative with the epic named as “checkout Journey Improvements” with the goal of improving the checkout experience for customers. Within this epic, they could create child user stories such as Checkout journey UI improvements, changes in customer vetting, integrating the new payment methods, Add Order Summary Section etc. if there are any cross functional dependencies to complete these stories then we can link those stories with the options “has to be done before” , “has to be done after”, “has to be done together”, “blocked”, “Consists of” and other options available in Jira or in the respective agile project management tools. Each of these user stories contributes to the broader goal defined by the epic. By linking them together, the team can track progress, identify dependencies, and ensure that all work aligns with the overall project goals in the form of common understanding."

In terms of appropriateness, both approaches have their place in agile project management:

1. Linking user stories to epics: This is proper when there is a clear background connection between multiple user stories that contribute to achieving a larger project goal. It helps keep visibility and alignment with the broader goals of the project between different cross functional teams.
2. Creating user stories as children: This is proper when an epic story is too large or complex to be completed in a single iteration or sprint. Breaking it down into small user stories by following INVEST principle, actionable tasks allow for better estimation, tracking, and incremental delivery of value.

Agile experts and authors generally recommend combining the two approaches as needed, depending on the size, complexity, and dependencies of the work items involved. The key is to strike a balance between keeping a high-level view of project goals and breaking work down into smaller, more manageable chunks that can be delivered iteratively across multiple sprints. This enables teams to be adaptable, responsive, and focused on providing value to stakeholders.

In conclusion, while both linking user stories to epics and creating user stories as children require organizing and structuring work items, they differ in terms of the scope and level of detailing involved.