User Stories and Acceptance Criteria Questions and Answers for Viva

Answer-1: A user story is a short, simple description of a feature or requirement told from the perspective of the end user or customer. It typically follows the format: "As a [type of user], I want [goal] so that [reason]."

Answer-2: A user story consists of the title, description (who, what, and why), acceptance criteria, priority, and estimate (time or effort).

Answer-3: Acceptance criteria are the conditions that must be met for a user story to be considered complete and accepted by the product owner or stakeholder.

Answer-4: Good user stories are clear, concise, and focus on user needs. They should follow the INVEST criteria (Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable).

Answer-5: INVEST stands for Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable. It is a guideline for writing effective user stories that are easy to understand, prioritize, and implement.

Answer-6: User stories are short descriptions of a user's needs, while use cases provide detailed, step-by-step scenarios on how the system should behave. Use cases are more formal, whereas user stories are informal and high-level.

Answer-7: Acceptance criteria define the conditions under which a user story is considered complete. They guide the development and testing process, ensuring that the feature meets the specified requirements.

Answer-8: User stories can be made clear by keeping them simple, using plain language, focusing on one specific requirement, and involving stakeholders to ensure accuracy.

Answer-9: Functional acceptance criteria define specific features or functions a system must have, while non-functional criteria define system attributes like performance, usability, and security.

Answer-10: Example: "As a shopper, I want to filter products by price so that I can find items within my budget."

Answer-11: User stories are prioritized based on business value, user needs, dependencies, and project goals. Techniques like MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have) and value-based prioritization are commonly used.

Answer-12: The definition of done is a shared understanding within the team of when a user story is complete, typically including completed coding, successful tests, documentation, and stakeholder acceptance.

Answer-13: Large or complex user stories are split into smaller, more manageable stories, each with clear acceptance criteria, ensuring they are implementable within a sprint.

Answer-14: User stories are the fundamental building blocks of Agile development, representing features or requirements that are planned, developed, tested, and delivered incrementally in sprints.

Answer-15: User stories are typically estimated using story points, which are a measure of effort, complexity, or size. Methods like Planning Poker or T-shirt sizing are commonly used for estimation.

Answer-16: Story points are used to estimate the relative effort or complexity of a user story. They help teams predict how much work can be done in a sprint and ensure better sprint planning.

Answer-17: Splitting a user story means breaking it down into smaller, more manageable stories, typically by user type, workflow step, or feature subset, while ensuring the acceptance criteria remain valid.

Answer-18: Changing user stories during a sprint should be avoided, but if necessary, they are handled through proper communication with the product owner and by re-prioritizing or adjusting the sprint backlog.

Answer-19: The product owner is responsible for creating and refining user stories, ensuring they are aligned with business goals and user needs, and maintaining the product backlog.

Answer-20: User stories are made testable by writing clear acceptance criteria, defining specific conditions and expected outcomes, and ensuring all relevant scenarios are covered.

Answer-21: User stories provide a simple, flexible way to capture requirements, encourage collaboration with stakeholders, prioritize based on value, and enable incremental delivery of software.

Answer-22: Effective acceptance criteria are clear, concise, measurable, and testable. They should describe the expected behavior of the system in a specific scenario and define success conditions.

Answer-23: While acceptance criteria should be finalized before a sprint, they can be adjusted if new information arises, but such changes should be communicated and agreed upon with the product owner.

Answer-24: User stories and their acceptance criteria form the basis for test cases. The criteria define the conditions under which the feature is considered complete, guiding both functional and regression testing.

Answer-25: Backlog grooming (or refinement) is the process of reviewing and prioritizing user stories in the product backlog, ensuring they are well-defined and ready for the upcoming sprint.

Answer-26: An epic is a large user story that can be broken down into smaller, more manageable user stories. It represents a significant feature or functionality and spans multiple sprints.

Answer-27: A user story is a high-level requirement or feature from the user?s perspective, while a task is a specific action or piece of work needed to complete the user story.

Answer-28: Dependencies are managed by identifying them early, communicating with stakeholders, and prioritizing the dependent stories accordingly to avoid delays in the sprint.

Answer-29: During sprint planning, user stories are reviewed, estimated, and prioritized to determine which stories will be included in the upcoming sprint, ensuring the team's capacity is properly allocated.

Answer-30: User stories are tracked using tools like JIRA, Trello, or other Agile project management software, where their progress is monitored from "To Do" to "Done" based on their acceptance criteria.

Answer-31: The "Given-When-Then" format is used to structure acceptance criteria. "Given" describes the initial context, "When" specifies the action, and "Then" outlines the expected outcome or result.

Answer-32: User stories are aligned with business goals by involving stakeholders in their creation, understanding business priorities, and ensuring that each story delivers value to the user or organization.

Answer-33: Example: "Given a valid username and password, when I click the 'Login' button, then I should be redirected to the dashboard page and see a welcome message."

Answer-34: User stories are completed within a sprint by properly estimating their effort, breaking them down into manageable tasks, and ensuring that the team has the necessary skills and resources to deliver them.

Answer-35: Conflicts in defining user stories are resolved by facilitating discussions with stakeholders, clarifying requirements, and prioritizing user needs to ensure alignment with business goals.

Answer-36: Success is measured by whether the acceptance criteria are met, the feature delivers the expected business value, and it passes testing and stakeholder reviews.

Answer-37: Common pitfalls include writing overly vague or overly detailed stories, neglecting to include acceptance criteria, and not aligning the stories with user needs or business goals.

Answer-38: Ambiguous user stories are clarified through collaboration with stakeholders, asking questions to define the scope, and refining the story's acceptance criteria.

Answer-39: User stories and acceptance criteria are documented in project management tools like JIRA, Trello, or in simple text formats that outline the story, actors, goals, and specific criteria for completion.

Answer-40: User stories are broken down into smaller, more manageable parts during backlog grooming, ensuring that they are small enough to be completed within a single sprint.

Answer-41: User stories define the work that needs to be done during an Agile sprint. They are selected, estimated, and completed within the sprint's timeframe.

Answer-42: Test cases are created from the acceptance criteria of user stories, ensuring that each feature is thoroughly tested against its expected behavior and success conditions.

Answer-43: Conflicting priorities are handled by discussing with stakeholders, assessing business value, and using prioritization techniques like MoSCoW or relative value ranking.

Answer-44: Stakeholders are involved through workshops, meetings, or interviews where their needs and expectations are gathered to define user stories that align with business goals.

Answer-45: Tools like JIRA, Trello, Asana, and VersionOne are commonly used to create, manage, prioritize, and track user stories throughout the software development lifecycle.

Answer-46: The product owner is responsible for defining, prioritizing, and refining user stories, ensuring they align with business goals and stakeholder needs.

Answer-47: Dependencies are managed by identifying them early, communicating with stakeholders, and re-prioritizing stories or adjusting the sprint to mitigate delays.

Answer-48: If acceptance criteria are not met, the user story is considered incomplete, and additional work is required before it can be accepted by the product owner.

Answer-49: "Done" means that the development work for the story is complete, whereas "accepted" means that the product owner or stakeholder has reviewed and validated the story against its acceptance criteria.

Answer-50: Changes in acceptance criteria after completion are handled by reassessing the story, refining the criteria, and potentially reopening the story for additional work or testing.