User Stories: INVEST

Good user stories are: Indepenent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimatable, Small and Testable

INVEST is an acronym for writing good stories.

Note that it isn’t possible to do all of these perfectly, all of the time. These are goals and guidelines, not dogma.

Criterion	Explanation
Indepdenent	Ideally, it doesn’t depend on other stories getting done first.
Negotiable	High level, not overly detailed. Leave some room for the team to make choices.
Valuable	It needs to help the end user meet a need or fulfill a desire.
Estimatable	Not so vague that we have no idea how long it will take.
Small	Smaller stories are easier to estimate, manage and deliver.
Testable	We need to be able to demonstrate we are done, and we did it right.

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