Too early, too late, too vague
Teams create stories at the wrong time, with too little detail or far too much.
Create Better User Stories
Do you want to create better user stories?
Learn proven techniques and practical tools to craft user stories that empower development teams, reduce rework and delight stakeholders.
Is your team struggling with user stories?
Poorly formed stories create confusion, rework, inaccurate estimation and frustration across the delivery system.
Stories are too big
Large requirements sit in the backlog because teams struggle to split them into useful, deliverable slices.
Rework keeps happening
Poor requirements, weak understanding and unclear acceptance criteria create avoidable waste.
Estimation takes too long
Teams spend too much time estimating poorly understood work.
Priorities are noisy
Prioritisation is driven by whoever shouts loudest rather than what matters most.
Stakeholders lack visibility
Internal and external stakeholders struggle to see what is being built and whether it is the right thing.
Revolutionise your Agile requirements management.
This workshop demystifies the subject of user story creation and gives teams powerful, practical techniques to simplify requirements management.
It is not just a session for Business Analysts. Everyone involved in software development benefits from learning how to shape better user stories, ask better questions and create clearer shared understanding.
What you'll gain
Practical skills for turning unclear requirements into useful, actionable stories.
Clearer, actionable stories
Write user stories with the right level of detail to support development without overloading the team.
Better story splitting
Master techniques for breaking large requirements into smaller, more manageable pieces of value.
Stronger backlog management
Create and groom backlogs more effectively so priorities stay aligned with team and stakeholder needs.
Sharper acceptance criteria
Improve requirements quality through better acceptance criteria and practical sizing conversations.
Rapid prototyping
Use prototyping and discovery techniques to test assumptions before committing too much effort.
Hypothesis testing
Develop a practical framework for testing assumptions and learning faster.
Topics covered
A hands-on workshop covering the behaviours, techniques and conversations needed to create better Agile user stories with development teams.
- Day-to-day interactions between team members
- Typical duties carried out by each member of the team
- Writing better user stories
- What to include
- What not to include
- The right level of detail
- Who needs to be involved
- Techniques for breaking down stories
- Requirements hierarchy: epics, stories and tasks
- Up-front epic breakdown versus just-in-time breakdown
- Backlog grooming and management
- Rapid prototyping
- Persona empathy mapping
- When to capture the detail
- Story mapping
- Writing better acceptance criteria
- Sizing and estimation of stories
- Minimum Viable Product
- How much up-front requirements work to do
- Running an inception or discovery
- Techniques for testing assumptions and hypotheses
What past participants say
Feedback from people who have attended the Create Better User Stories workshop.
"This wasn't just another training session. It was hands-on, insightful, and full of real-world tips. Our backlog is now a well-oiled machine, and our team's delivery has improved significantly."
Alex B., Delivery Lead, Pharma"I've attended several Agile workshops, but this one stood out. It brought our team together, and the content was immediately applicable. Highly recommended!"
Priya R., Scrum Master, Insurance"For the first time, our developers are happy with the level of detail in user stories. The techniques for splitting large stories and setting clear acceptance criteria have drastically reduced rework."
Mark L., Senior Developer, FinTechCertification
This course has been accredited by Solutioneers. Upon completion, attendees become accredited members of the Solutioneers Alumni.
You will receive a certificate of completion and a listing in the Solutioneers Alumni.
Meet your trainer
Ian Carroll
Brickell Key Award winner Ian Carroll is a consultant, coach and speaker on Lean, Kanban and Agile software development. Using 30 years of hands-on experience, Ian helps teams transform their ways of working using Kanban and other Lean and Agile techniques to lower costs while increasing their ability to respond to changing market demands and outperform competitors. Ian has trained and coached hundreds of software development teams in Agile, Lean and Kanban techniques.
Ready to transform your backlog?
Learn how to write clearer user stories, reduce rework, split work more effectively and create shared understanding across your delivery team.