Check a User Story With INVEST (in Jira)
Check a user story with INVEST before it goes into a sprint: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small and Testable. Each letter is checked against a real part of a Jira story.
Step by step
Six letters
- INVEST check. Is this story good enough to plan? INVEST gives you six quick questions to find out. Let me check a real story in Jira, one letter at a time.
- Find the story. This is the backlog of our online shop. Type discount in the search box to find the story. Open apply a discount code.
- INVEST check. Six letters, six questions. If any answer is no, the story goes back for more work before a sprint.
I N V
- I - Independent. I is independent. Can the team build it without waiting for another story? Look at linked work items. Nothing blocks it, so yes.
- N - Negotiable. N is negotiable. The I want part says what the shopper wants, not how the screen must look. The details stay open for a talk with the team.
- V - Valuable. V is valuable. The so that part names the value. The shopper pays the promised price. No so that, no clear value.
E S T
- E - Estimable. E is estimable. The team understood it well enough to give it a size. Three story points. If they cannot size it, ask more questions first.
- S - Small. S is small. Three points fits easily inside one sprint, and it already sits in sprint one. A story that fills a whole sprint should be split.
- T - Testable. T is testable. Each given, when, then line is a test with a clear yes or no. A valid code lowers the total. An expired code shows a message.
The verdict
- Ready to plan. All six answers are yes. That is why this story was safe to plan into the sprint.
Recap
- Six questions. So, independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small, testable. Check the links, the story sentence, the so that, the points, the sprint and the acceptance criteria. Any no, fix it first.
