User Stories Are Half the Story. Here’s What’s Missing.

Let me start by saying I am no Business Analyst. So there may be a reason why this is a really stupid idea. Or maybe something like this already exists? But as a Project Manager, who has seen many a documented requirement, there is often something I feel is missing - the “why” .

Why why why Delilah?

That title is the theme tune of Stoke City football club. As a lifelong fan, I've always wanted to write a post where I could get that into the title. Today is a proud day.

The theory is that user stories put the “why” into the requirement. Maybe I'm just the recipient of 1000s of really badly written user stories (entirely possible). But even some good ones, I feel, miss “the why”.

As a… I want… so that… feels like the “so that” should include the why. It's plausible. But it's not what I experience.

So that

A quick search for good examples of user stories brings up an article by Atlassian. Great, I envisage they know a thing or two about user stories. Here's their example of a good user story.

As Sascha, I want to organize my work, so I can feel more in control.

But when I read that I have questions. Sascha, why do you want to feel more in control? Have you a particularly divergent set of needs? Are you asking for a taxonomy to organize things? Or are you just a control freak who wants progress reports on everything? Do you need visibility and frequent updates?

The answer to the why question leads me to build entirely different solutions for you.

It's in the persona

Purists tell me that information is in the persona, not the user story. I try hard not to laugh. I’m not a vindictive person by design, but, well, come on!

• Firstly, a documented persona is really not that common.
• Secondly, when I do see a documented persona, it certainly doesn’t include any ‘whys’ for user stories
• And finally, if I now need to look in two places to understand the requirement, do a bit of interpretation on intent based on a loose invented life history of a fictitious person, I’m losing the will.

It’s probably not in the persona. Why not just extend the user story?

As Sascha, I want to organise my work, so I can feel more in control because my work comes in from 12 different sources and I just need a central place to keep it.

As Sascha, I want to organise my work, so I can feel more in control because I have Alzheimer's and I forget things.

As Sascha, I want to organise my work, so I can feel more in control because I have a daily meeting with my boss who needs to check I’m working equally across 3 different priorities.

It’s in the why

In each User Story Plus, what gets built is different.

• In the first, it’s about different sources integrating into the to-do list
• In the second, I’m probably building a voice-capture mechanism and visual reminders to increase task association and recall
• In the last, it’s about a taxonomy for tasks, perhaps with some AI to auto suggest categorisation

The why is what really helps us build better. The why is what avoids re-work. The why also makes us feel good. When we understand the why behind our work, we feel more connected to the problem, and better about ourselves because we solved a problem that meant something.

As I said at the top, I’m no Business Analyst so maybe this already exists, or maybe this is a bad idea. However, keeping in theme of the post, I think ‘why not’?