user-stories

As I understand things, the Scrum backlog is composed of a series of Stories that represent something for the end user and this is further decomposed into Features. If this is the case, where does all the behind the scenes features go that aren't really linked to a story but are still useful? For example, say I'm making an application that catalogs the contents of a hard drive. A story wouldn't require it but having an md5 hash on each file would be a nice feature for flagging duplicates. The classic template to write good stories is: "As a <role> , I want to <action> so that <business value>

I guess a feature could be something like "credit card authorization", while a user story may be "authorize credit card for paypal". So, is a user story a subset of a feature? Yes, something like a subset. This article is a good read: Features vs Stories Excerpt: I realized today that I hadn't made explicit the difference in my mind between features and stories and it's an important difference. Essentially, a feature is a group of stories that are related and deliver a package of functionality that end users would generally expect to get all at once. For instance, inline table resizing is a

I am from an XP background. I know the process very well and have solid working experience with it. I have found it to be the best way to develop software. I find myself in the position of a process doctor of sorts and this creates much self examination and revaluation of my own understandings. A very common thing I hear is that some work can’t be made into stories. I personally don’t believe this. The excuses include Its too big (The developer will have nothing to show until the end of 5 weeks). it’s a complicated algorithm or abstract concept (will take 5 weeks to write and nothing to show).

I am attempting to manage my projects a little better so I am looking at attempting to apply some of (eventually all) the features of scrum . Looking at user stories specifically the high level format seems to be: As a User I can Feature Description or Artifact is Doing Something How would I write "Upgrade the Database"? Is it simply Upgrade the Database? I think I am being thrown off as there is no specific actor/customer and that the customer is the IT department. Michael Dillon AS A [person/role] I NEED TO [do something] SO THAT [provides business value]. For your example a user story might