The benefits of breaking down user stories

Breaking down problems into smaller, more consumable pieces can improve predictability and feedback cycles while reducing risk.

Smooth increments are preferable to significant abrupt changes. This applies to many systems: GitLab MRs, product improvements, our lives…

Before anything else, we need to address the actual definition of a user story, as originally coined by XP:

What is a user story? Debunking the myths

I’ll try to go over the benefits of adequately slicing user stories. To be clear, when I say small, I’m referring to the size of the problem, not the solution (even a little story can take a while to implement in some cases). Therefore, splitting user stories means recursively splitting the problem, not the solution. Beware that splitting by vertical slices of value is only effective if you have autonomous and multi-disciplinary teams — comprised of people who, together, have the necessary skills and empowerment to deliver user value. It’s way harder to achieve this when you have backend and frontend teams.

This approach has several noteworthy benefits. Let’s go over them.

“I can’t see a way through,” said the boy…