Prescribed User Stories

The PDR approach places a strong emphasis on defining detailed user stories that capture the specific needs, workflows, and interactions of the various user roles and stakeholders. These prescribed user stories serve as the foundation for the solution design and ensure the proposed system is truly user-centric.

The user stories describe the different user personas, their goals, and the step-by-step interactions they will have with the system to achieve those goals. These user stories are developed based on a thorough understanding of the business requirements, existing processes, and the needs of the target users.

By prescribing these detailed user stories, the PDR approach ensures that the solution design and development are aligned with the actual user needs and behaviors. This helps to minimize the risk of developing features that do not meet the users' expectations or fail to address their pain points.

The user stories also serve as a communication tool, allowing stakeholders to validate the proposed solution and provide feedback throughout the development process. This helps to maintain a user-centered focus and increases the likelihood of delivering a solution that is well-received and adopted by the end-users.

Purpose of Prescribed User Stories

• Serve as the foundation for the solution design, ensuring the proposed system is truly user-centric.

• Capture the specific needs, workflows, and interactions of the various user roles and stakeholders.

• Minimize the risk of developing features that do not meet the users' expectations or fail to address their pain points.

• Provide a communication tool to allow stakeholders to validate the proposed solution and provide feedback throughout the development process.

• Maintain a user-centered focus and increase the likelihood of delivering a solution that is well-received and adopted by the end-users.

Overview of Prescribed User Stories

The key aspects of prescribed user stories requirement are:

Objective Description

The user stories should provide a neutral, factual description of the requirements. Subjective language or interpretations should be avoided and the focus should be on clearly articulating the user needs, goals, and acceptance criteria. This information should be presented in a straightforward manner.

Any technical details or system functionality described within the user stories should be conveyed in a clear, jargon-free way. Specialized terminology should be minimized to ensure the content is accessible to a broad audience and overall approach should be to present the user story information objectively, without personal opinions or embellishments. The goal is to enable a common understanding of the requirements among all stakeholders involved in the delivery process.

Concise and Structured Presentation

The user stories should be organized in a clear and structured format, with consistent formatting and structure. This structured presentation will enhance readability and comprehension of the requirements.

Each user story should be concisely and succinctly stated, without unnecessary elaboration or tangents and the language used should be precise and easy to understand, avoiding verbosity or ambiguity. This concise and structured format, along with the use of precise language, will ensure the user stories convey the necessary information in an efficient manner and supports a common understanding of the requirements among all stakeholders involved in the delivery process.

By maintaining this informational approach to the presentation of user stories, the documentation can effectively communicate the details needed to plan, implement, and validate the prescribed delivery strategies. The clarity and factual nature of the content will support efficient delivery execution and help avoid any misinterpretation of the requirements.

Actionable and Measurable

The user stories should be framed in a way that makes them actionable and measurable for the delivery team. The acceptance criteria should be defined in objective, verifiable terms, without subjective assessments. This allows the project team to clearly understand the requirements and plan for their implementation.

Key aspects of being actionable and measurable are:

• Clear Direction. the emphasis should be on providing clear direction on how to frame user stories to make them actionable and measurable. Instructions should be straightforward and easy to follow, guiding the team on how to structure user stories effectively.

• Objective Acceptance Criteria, should stress the importance of defining acceptance criteria in objective and verifiable terms and avoiding subjective assessments to ensure that the criteria is clear and measurable, allowing for objective evaluation of the user story completion.

• Empowering the Project Team, the tone should convey the idea of empowering the project team by providing them with the tools and information needed to understand and implement the requirements effectively. By following the guidelines provided, the team can plan and execute their tasks with clarity and purpose.

• Focus on Clarity and Planning, the primary goal of this section is to promote clarity in user story creation and facilitate effective planning. The tone should encourage the team to create user stories that are actionable, measurable, and aligned with the project goals.

Separation of Concerns

Refers to a software design principle that advocates for dividing a system into distinct sections, each addressing a specific aspect of functionality. In the context of user stories and requirements documentation for prescriptive delivery, the separation of concerns requirement entails:

• Distinct Focus: User stories should focus on articulating the "what" and "why" of the requirements, detailing the user needs and goals without delving into the technical implementation details.

• Clarification of Roles: By separating concerns, the roles and responsibilities of different team members become clearer. User stories address the business needs and objectives, while technical details are handled separately by the development team.

• Enhanced Clarity: Keeping technical details separate from user stories ensures that the requirements documentation remains clear, concise, and easily understandable for all stakeholders, regardless of their technical expertise.

• Mitigation of Complexity: Separating concerns helps in managing the complexity of the project by breaking it down into manageable parts, each addressing a specific aspect of the solution.

• Improved Maintainability: When concerns are separated, it becomes easier to maintain and update the documentation. Changes in technical details do not impact the user stories, and vice versa.

• Alignment with Goals: This approach ensures that user stories are aligned with the project goals and user needs, focusing on delivering value without getting bogged down in technical specifics.

Overall, the separation of concerns requirement in prescriptive delivery supports a structured and organized approach to documenting requirements, ensuring clarity, maintainability, and alignment with the project objectives.