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Product Management vocabulary · Requirements & User Stories

User story

Meaning in product management, with examples

nounCore term

In product management, user story means: A short description of a feature written from the user's point of view, usually in the form “As a [type of user], I want [goal] so that [benefit].”

In Turkish: kullanıcı hikayesi, kullanıcı senaryosu

How it is used

The basic unit of work in agile backlogs. PMs and product owners write user stories, split big ones into smaller ones and add acceptance criteria. Engineers then estimate them and pull them into a sprint. Often just called a story.

Example sentences

  1. Here's the user story: “As a store owner, I want to export my orders so that I can send them to my accountant.”

  2. This user story is too big for one sprint; let's split it.

Common collocations

  • write a user story
  • split a user story
  • user story mapping
  • estimate a user story
  • acceptance criteriaThe specific conditions a user story must meet before the team and the product owner accept it as finished and working correctly.
  • epicA large piece of work that is too big for one sprint and is broken down into several smaller user stories, such as “Multi-currency support”.
  • backlogAn ordered list of all the work a product team might do, such as features, improvements and bug fixes, with the most important items at the top.
  • story pointsA unit that agile teams use to estimate the relative size of a user story, combining effort, complexity and uncertainty instead of counting hours.
  • requirementSomething a product or feature must do, or a condition it must meet, written down so that the team agrees on what to build.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Requirements & User Stories

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