ISTQB FOUNDATION 4.0 | Tutorial 40 | Collaborative User Story Writing | Agile Method | CTFL Tutorial

Summary

This tutorial delves into the ISTQB Foundation level certification, focusing on chapter 4.5, which covers collaboration-based test approaches within the Agile methodology. It emphasizes the importance of collaborative user story writing, involving stakeholders to ensure comprehensive and defect-oriented stories. The script explains the 3 C's of user stories: card, conversation, and confirmation, and stresses the significance of the INVEST technique for crafting independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small, and testable stories. The tutorial aims to guide teams in writing effective user stories that align with everyone's expectations and facilitate easier testing and development.

Takeaways

• 📘 The tutorial focuses on collaborative user story writing in the context of Agile methodologies, emphasizing the importance of stakeholder involvement in the process.
• 👥 The Product Owner (PO) is primarily responsible for writing user stories in Agile, but collaboration with all stakeholders is key for comprehensive and defect-oriented stories.
• 🔍 Collaborative user story writing involves gathering business representatives, the development team, and the PO to ensure a complete and clear understanding of the story from everyone's perspective.
• 📝 The script introduces the '3 C's of user stories': Card, Conversation, and Confirmation, which represent the medium of description, the discussion around the story, and the acceptance criteria, respectively.
• 🎯 The 'Card' is a physical or digital representation of the user story, the 'Conversation' explains the software's intended use, and 'Confirmation' refers to the clear acceptance criteria that define story completion.
• 📑 User stories should be detailed enough to guide test engineers, ensuring they have all the necessary information to perform testing.
• 🧑‍💼 The common format for a user story includes a user profile, a goal to be accomplished, and the expected outcome, followed by acceptance criteria.
• 🤝 Collaborative authorship can employ techniques like brainstorming and mind mapping to achieve a shared vision of the deliverable, considering business, development, and testing perspectives.
• 📈 The INVEST technique is highlighted as a guideline for writing good user stories, standing for Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable.
• 🔍 Each user story should be reviewed to ensure it meets the INVEST criteria, which helps in identifying clarity, value, and testability.
• 🚀 The tutorial concludes by emphasizing the benefits of collaborative user story writing for organizations, such as resolving issues early and ensuring stories are easily achievable and testable.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the tutorial in the provided transcript?

The tutorial focuses on collaborative user story writing in the context of Agile methodologies, specifically within the ISTQB Foundation level certification, discussing its importance and process.

What is the role of a Product Owner (PO) in Agile methodology?

In Agile methodology, the Product Owner is responsible for writing user stories, ensuring they reflect the needs and perspectives of all stakeholders.

What are the three critical aspects of user stories referred to as the 3 C's?

The 3 C's are Card, Conversation, and Confirmation. The Card is the medium describing the user story, Conversation explains how the software will be used, and Confirmation is the clear acceptance criteria.

What does the 'Card' in the 3 C's represent?

The 'Card' represents the medium that describes a user story, which can be represented electronically on a digital board or physically on a sticky note.

Can you explain the 'Conversation' aspect of the 3 C's in user stories?

The 'Conversation' aspect involves discussing the details of a particular story, including expectations and features, to understand how the software will be used to meet business needs.

What is meant by 'Confirmation' in the context of the 3 C's?

'Confirmation' refers to the clear acceptance criteria that define what needs to be achieved for a user story to be considered complete.

What is the significance of involving different stakeholders in collaborative user story writing?

Involving different stakeholders ensures that the user stories are comprehensive, addressing everyone's expectations, which can lead to better defect detection and more complete stories.

What is the common format for writing a user story?

The common format for a user story is 'As a [role], I want [goal] so that [expected outcome]', which includes the user profile, the goal to be accomplished, and the resulting business value.

What does the INVEST acronym stand for in the context of good user stories?

INVEST stands for Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable, which are the criteria that a good user story should meet.

Why is it important for a user story to be 'testable' according to the INVEST criteria?

A user story being 'testable' ensures that there is a clear understanding of how to verify whether the story's acceptance criteria have been met, guiding the test engineer in their testing process.

How does the collaborative authorship of user stories benefit the development and testing process?

Collaborative authorship allows the team to obtain a shared vision of what should be delivered, taking into account business, development, and testing perspectives, which can lead to more efficient and effective development and testing.

Outlines

00:00

📝 Agile Methodology and Collaborative User Story Writing

The first paragraph introduces the topic of collaborative user story writing within the Agile methodology. It emphasizes the importance of bringing together various stakeholders, including the product owner (PO), business representatives, and the development team, to create comprehensive user stories. The three critical aspects of user stories, known as the 3 C's (Card, Conversation, and Confirmation), are explained. The 'Card' represents the medium of the story, 'Conversation' details the functionality and expectations, and 'Confirmation' outlines the acceptance criteria. The paragraph also discusses the common format of user stories, involving a user profile, goal, expected outcome, and acceptance criteria, and highlights the INVEST technique for writing good user stories that are Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable.

05:00

🤝 Enhancing User Story Quality through Collaboration

The second paragraph delves deeper into the collaborative authorship of user stories, suggesting techniques like brainstorming and mind mapping to achieve a shared vision. It stresses the need for a user story to address everyone's expectations: what the customer wants, how the team will implement it, and the information required for testing. The paragraph also explains that a good user story should be reviewed to ensure it complies with the INVEST elements. It provides an example of a user story format, emphasizing the importance of detailing the login process, including fields, data sources, user IDs, and passwords, as well as specifying acceptance criteria such as password resets and login attempts. The summary concludes by reiterating the significance of collaborative user story writing in resolving issues and ensuring clarity and achievability in the development process.

Keywords

💡ISTQB Foundation Level Certification

The ISTQB Foundation Level Certification is a globally recognized qualification for software testers. It signifies that the individual has a fundamental understanding of software testing principles and practices. In the video, this certification is the main topic, as the tutorial aims to guide viewers through the learning process, specifically focusing on chapter 4, which deals with test analysis and design.

💡Test Analysis and Design

Test Analysis and Design is a critical phase in the software testing process where testers evaluate the software requirements and design test cases to ensure the software meets those requirements. The video script discusses this phase in the context of chapter 4, emphasizing the importance of creating effective test cases through collaboration, which is a key aspect of agile methodologies.

💡Collaboration

Collaboration in the context of the video refers to the cooperative effort among various stakeholders, including the Product Owner (PO), business representatives, and the development team, to create comprehensive user stories. The script highlights the importance of collaborative user story writing as a technique to gather diverse perspectives and ensure that the test cases cover all necessary aspects of the software functionality.

💡Agile Methodology

Agile Methodology is a flexible approach to software development that emphasizes teamwork, customer collaboration, and iterative progress. The video script discusses how agile principles can be applied to test case development, with a focus on the collaborative creation of user stories that are valuable to the end-users or purchasers of the software system.

💡Product Owner (PO)

The Product Owner is a key role in agile development, responsible for managing the product backlog and ensuring that it represents the needs and priorities of the stakeholders. In the script, the PO is mentioned as the primary writer of user stories, but the process is collaborative, involving discussions with various stakeholders to create comprehensive and testable stories.

💡User Story

A user story is a simple description of a feature from the perspective of the end-user or customer of the system. It is used to guide the development and testing of software. The script explains that user stories have three critical aspects known as the 3 C's: Card, Conversation, and Confirmation, which together form the basis for creating testable and valuable features.

💡3 C's (Card, Conversation, Confirmation)

The 3 C's represent the core components of a user story in agile development. The 'Card' is a physical or digital representation of the user story, the 'Conversation' is the discussion about how the software will meet the user's needs, and 'Confirmation' refers to the acceptance criteria that must be met for the story to be considered complete. The script uses these components to explain how user stories are created and validated.

💡Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance Criteria are the conditions that a software feature must meet to be accepted by the stakeholders. They provide a clear definition of what constitutes successful completion of a user story. In the script, acceptance criteria are emphasized as essential for guiding testers in determining when a story is ready to be considered finished.

💡INVEST Technique

INVEST is a mnemonic for Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable. It is a set of criteria to evaluate the quality of user stories. The script mentions INVEST as a technique to ensure that user stories are clear, valuable, and testable, which is crucial for effective collaboration and testing.

💡Sprint Planning

Sprint Planning is a meeting in agile development where the team decides what work will be done during the upcoming sprint or iteration. The script refers to Sprint Planning in the context of estimating the scope of work for user stories, which is essential for allocating tasks and managing expectations within the development team.

💡Testing

Testing, in the context of the video, is the process of evaluating software to ensure it meets the specified requirements and is free from defects. The script discusses how collaborative user story writing and the application of agile principles can improve the testing process by creating more comprehensive and testable user stories.

Highlights

Introduction to ISTQB Foundation Level certification, Chapter 4 on Test Analysis and Design.

Focus on collaboration-based test approaches and Agile methodology.

Collaborative user story writing as a key technique in Agile.

The role of the Product Owner (PO) in writing user stories.

Importance of involving all stakeholders in user story writing.

Reviewing stories after they are written by the PO.

The 3 C's of user stories: Card, Conversation, and Confirmation.

Card as a medium to describe a user story.

Conversation to explain software usage and expectations.

Confirmation as clear acceptance criteria for user stories.

User stories representing valuable features to users or purchasers.

Common format of user stories involving a user profile, goal, and expected outcome.

Elaboration of user stories in descriptions and acceptance criteria.

Techniques like brainstorming and mind mapping for collaborative authorship.

User stories should address everyone's expectations: customer, development, and testing.

INVEST technique for writing good user stories: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable.

Reviewing user stories for compliance with INVEST elements.

The significance of collaborative user story writing in resolving issues and ensuring clarity in Agile methodologies.

Encouraging comments and queries for further learning and exploration.

Transcripts

Hello friends and greetings for the day

welcome back to another tutorial on

istqb Foundation level certification we

are in chapter 4 talking about test

analysis and design and today we are

getting started with the new segment

that is 4.5 collaboration based test

approaches and here we'll be talking

some of the important things from the

agile methodology that how we can work

together to identify the best test

cases

to get started of course we are talking

about the very first thing which is

collaborative user story writing of

course we understand that PO is someone

who is responsible in agile methodology

to write the user stories however we

always call it out as collaborative user

writing skill set or technique the

collaborative user story writing is all

about putting every single stakeholder

together in terms of discussing

Gathering up and and making sure that

the stories which are being written by

the PO that is product owner has

everything in it from everyone's

perspective however we can always review

a story at the end after it has been

written by the PO but that is subjected

to a small Rook right but if we gather

together including business

representative the development team and

the product owner together we would we

would result into writing a complete

story at a time itself and that's where

we do consider these as one of the good

techniques to be followed when it comes

to Agile methodologies in order to make

our stories complete getting it analyzed

then and there and also being more

defect detection oriented so let's see

what exactly the content is trying to

talk about when it comes to writing

collaborative user story a user story

certainly represents a feature that will

be valuable to either a user or

purchaser of the system or software user

stories have three critical aspects

called together as 3 C's concept now 3

C's here certainly stand for the card

conversation and Confirmation the card

stands for the medium which describes a

user story with all the information can

be represented electronically on a

digital board or can have a physical

board reflected by a sticky note as a

card also the next one conversation

which is conversation explains how the

software will be used which is a

description related to that particular

story that how are we trying to achieve

these things or what is the exact

expectation from the business on this

particular note and the third important

thing is confirmation which is a clear

acceptance Criterion now if I just

combine these three things together when

I say three CS every single story is

expected to have a visibility whenever

we work in a team so that it should be

represented with help of a card that

means there should be a physical or

digital card available which talks about

a particular work item in a significant

independent piece of paper or piece of

sheet or something like that right with

every single one liner story does comes

the details of it which is conversation

the conversation is more about what

exactly is the details of a particular

story what is the expectation what

features what functionality are we

looking forward to have when it comes to

a particular story and the third

important thing is that is when we come

to the confirmation which is the

acceptance criteria however sometime the

user stories can be very very detailed

or can have a very broad expectations

and outlines defined but given that the

set of acceptance criterias are written

we exactly know what is that we should

achieve at the end of the day as far as

acceptance criterias are met a story can

be declared as completed so sometime the

story can be very wide and people may

have multiple perceptions towards it

that what all should be implemented in

order to get it completed now given that

acceptance criterias are written it

would confine us to the point and we

will just be able to achieve the exact

acceptance criteria and then we will be

done with the story also to add here we

are also talking about the most common

format of a user story which is followed

worldwide is as a role which is

basically the user profile for example

as a user as a customer as a bank teller

or as a bank manager so involving the

Persona in the user story will always

give us a Clarity that that which user

profile is trying to do that work and

maybe the permissions and accesses and

lot of other things would be

automatically taken into account so the

format continues as as a role that is

user profile I want that is goal to be

accomplished so whatever you want to do

so that I can that is the expected

outcome which is resulting business

value for the role followed by the

acceptance criteria so in simple words I

can say this as the the template

basically reads it out as a story can be

written in format that as a user I want

to be able to login on an application so

that I can check my emails that's it so

now you have three all the three parts

that user is trying to login right and

then the subject or what you want to do

is login into the application and the

end outcome which is expected result is

of course I can check my emails that

means I should be able to see my emails

after that that and of course this on

line summary sometime may not be very

enough because login has to be

elaborated that what kind of fields we

will have from where will it be fetching

the data and what kind of user ID and

passwords are accepted and so on so we

will elaborate this in the description

and third thing of course is my

acceptance criteria which will determine

that whether a registered user is able

to log in or if we have any other you

know part of it which is like a user can

reset their password using forgot

password link as a part of it or they

can and just try three times to log in

with invalid dator so all that part can

be in the acceptance criteria which will

give us a clear picture that what is

that should be considered as a

completion of the story further to add

here of course collaborative authorship

of the user story can use techniques

such as brainstorming and mind mapping

the collaboration allows the team to

obtain a shared vision of what should be

delivered by taking into account three

perspective that is business development

and testing a user story should always

be written in a manner that IT addresses

everybody's expectation that is

including what the customer wants second

how the team will implement it that is

development and third it has all the

information and details required for the

test engineer to perform the testing

required for it so a story should not be

incomplete in any of these manner or any

of these elements it should be

fulfilling everyone's need right from

that single story also to add here when

good user story should be written as or

when we talk about the good user stories

as one of the example these are to be

following following the invest technique

now what is invest technique it stands

for independent negotiable valuable

estimable small and testable if a

stakeholder does not know how to test a

user story this may indicate that the

user story is not clear enough or that

is it does not reflect something

valuable to them or the state holder

just needs help in testing so indeed

very important that every single user

story has all the information related to

testing which guides a test engineer

that how they can use the data what kind

of steps to be performed and what is the

expected end goal of this story at the

same time when we talk about the

technique invest we want to remind you

that each story should be reviewed in

order to call it as a good story so of

course while reviewing you check for the

invest the invest here says independent

that means every single story should be

independent of other stories negotiable

which simply means that it should be

negotiated in terms of like if some

things are not being achievable then can

I go ahead and do something

alternatively for that so negotiable

that means we can go ahead and discuss

the scope of work on it then we talk

about valuable every single story should

add value to the overall project

completion that means there should be no

such story which does not contribute to

the success of product or completion of

the product that means that's not a

story at all right estimable uh the data

should be written in such a way that the

team can really understand the scope of

work and estimate the stories while

doing the Sprint planning and uh s

stands for a small of course small is

the work has to be as simple as possible

so that one person can take it up in a

particular Sprint and T certainly stands

for testable so it has to be testable

too so put together when you review for

these elements in a user story and make

sure sure that user story complies with

all these uh elements of invest then

that's what you call it as a good user

story so put together that completely

makes sense that how collaborative user

story writing could be seen as a great

technique to help organizations write

better stories at the same time analyze

them while they are writing together a

lot of issues will be already resolved

and at the same time we will be making

sure that we are writing something which

can be easily achieved without much of

the conversation or much of the

discussion questions or contradictions

related to that so that's all from this

particular tutorial team should you have

anything else feel free to comment below

I'm always there to address your queries

and answer them well till then keep

learning keep exploring keep

understanding the context thanks for

watching the video team and happy

[Music]

learning