INVEST Criteria

5 minutes 5 Questions

INVEST is an acronym that embodies the key principles of writing good user stories. It stands for Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Sized Appropriately, and Testable. A user story must be 'Independent' to reduce entanglement with other stories, promoting flexibility. It should be 'Negot…

Guide: Understanding and Answering Exam Questions on INVEST Criteria

Importance:
INVEST Criteria are essential for Agile Project Management and PMI-ACP examination as they help in creating high-quality User Stories. It leads to building better products faster by encouraging the creation of small, independent stories, allowing for changes and improving project predictability.

What it is:
INVEST Criteria is an acronym where 'I' stands for Independent, 'N' stands for Negotiable, 'V' stands for Valuable, 'E' stands for Estimable, 'S' stands for Small, and 'T' stands for Testable. Each criterion plays a role in ensuring a useful user story.

How it works:
Each criterion in INVEST serves as a guideline for creating effective User Stories:
- Independent: The user story should be self-contained, in a way that there is no inherent dependency on another user story.
- Negotiable: User stories, up until they are part of an iteration, can always be changed and rewritten.
- Valuable: A user story must deliver value to the end-user.
- Estimable: You must always be able to estimate the size of a user story.
- Small: User stories should not be so big as to become impossible to plan/task/prioritize with a certain level of certainty.
- Testable: The user story or its related description must provide the necessary information to make the test development possible.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on INVEST Criteria:
- Understand each criterion deeply and how they help in creating effective user stories.
- Practice identifying whether a given User Story meets the INVEST criteria or not.
- Be prepared for questions asking for the application of INVEST criteria in various scenarios.
- Remember that not every User Story may always meet all the INVEST Criteria.
- Questions may ask about adapting in situations when criteria cannot be entirely met.
- Be aware of the limitations or pitfalls of each criterion.

Test mode:

Exam (Timed)

Practice (With explanations)

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Question 1

A project's user stories are too large and have become hard to estimate. What should you do to follow INVEST criteria?

Ask the client to provide more detailed requirements Decrease the project scope Continue estimating with the large user stories Estimate using a different metric Split the user stories into smaller, manageable pieces Leave the user stories out of the project

Correct Answer: Split the user stories into smaller, manageable pieces

INVEST criteria stands for Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable. Breaking down the larger user stories into smaller ones will help in estimation and meet the 'Small' and 'Estimable' criteria.

Question 2

A user story in your project includes tasks which require skills that your development team does not possess. Which INVEST criteria does it violate?

Specific, because the user story is not clear to the team. Independent, as the team is dependent on outside help. Estimable, as the team cannot accurately estimate what they cannot do. Negotiable, because the team cannot discuss something they don't know.

Correct Answer: Estimable, as the team cannot accurately estimate what they cannot do.

The answer is: 'Estimable, as the team cannot accurately estimate what they cannot do.' This scenario violates the Estimable criteria of INVEST because the development team cannot accurately estimate the task due to lack of specified skills required. In other words, they can't determine the time and resources needed since they don't have the necessary expertise. Also, Estimable refers to the ability of the team to estimate the size and complexity of the story, which is impossible in this situation. Here's why the other answers are incorrect: 'Negotiable, because the team cannot discuss something they don't know.' - This scenario doesn't violate the Negotiable criterion, as this criterion is about leaving room for negotiation and changes in the user story, not the team's knowledge or skills. 'Specific, because the user story is not clear to the team.' - The specificity of the user story is not the issue here; the problem is the lack of the necessary skills in the team to implement it. 'Independent, as the team is dependent on outside help.' - The independence of the user story is not the issue; it's about whether the work can be done independently of other work, not whether outside help is needed or not.

Question 3

A project manager discovers a user story that doesn't provide clear business value. Which INVEST principle does it violate?

Valuable Independent Estimable Small Testable Negotiable

Correct Answer: Valuable

The 'Valuable' principle of INVEST criteria requires that the user story should provide clear business value to the customer. If a user story doesn't provide clear value, it violates the 'Valuable' principle.

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