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Splitting User Stories

5 minutes 5 Questions

Splitting user stories means breaking down a user story into smaller pieces that still hold value and are testable and demonstrable. The reason for splitting a user story can be manifold: the story is too big (an epic), it's difficult to estimate, it involves too many unknowns, etc. The aim of splitting is to create pieces that can be developed, tested, completed, and shipped independently.

Guide for Splitting User Stories

Why is Splitting User Stories Important?
Splitting user stories is an important aspect of Agile project management because it ensures that work is manageable and deliverable within a specific iteration. It helps with prioritizing, avoids excessive complexity, and ensures better visibility, understanding, and control of the project.

What is Splitting User Stories?
Splitting user stories involve breaking down larger user stories, often referred to as epics, into smaller, manageable pieces that can be completed within a sprint. The result is a set of child user stories each representing an independently deliverable piece of functionality.

How does Splitting User Stories work?
Splitting user stories includes strategies like breaking down by operations, by workflow, by data, or by business rule. The goal is to create user stories small enough to be estimated and taken into a sprint for development.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Splitting User Stories on the PMI-ACP Exam
For the PMI-ACP exam, remember that each split story should provide value on its own, be testable, and be sized to be completed in a single sprint. In the exam, pay special attention to INVEST criteria (Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimatable, Small, and Testable) for splitting user stories. Also, familiarize yourself with common splitting patterns like breaking down by workflow steps, business rule variations, data variations or operations and how they can be applied in different project scenarios.

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PMI-ACP - User Stories Example Questions

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Question 1

During a sprint planning, you realize that a user story is too large to fit into the sprint. What is the best solution in this situation?

Correct Answer: Split the user story into smaller stories that each deliver value.

The best way to handle a user story that is too large for a sprint is to break it down into smaller, manageable pieces that can be completed within the sprint, each delivering value. Prioritizing the user story as the only one to work on does not ensure it fits the sprint, pushing the release date is not a sustainable practice and goes against Scrum principles of time-boxed sprints, and encouraging the team to artificially increase their velocity undermines the accurate estimation and planning process.

Question 2

The development team recognizes that a user story is too complex and has uncertainty. How do you handle this situation?

Correct Answer: Refine the backlog item by splitting it into smaller, more estimable pieces

The best approach when dealing with a complex and uncertain user story is to break it down into smaller pieces that the team can manage more easily. This facilitates estimating, understanding, and implementing each piece. Allocating additional time or increasing story points without altering the structure does not address the underlying issue of complexity and uncertainty. Holding a Sprint Zero focused on complex user stories is not a recognized Scrum practice and could lead to delays in delivering value.

Question 3

During refinement, the team realizes that a user story that requires an update to an algorithm affecting multiple modules is too large to be done in one sprint. What is the most suitable approach to split the story?

Correct Answer: Split it by the modules it impacts, creating a user story for each module.

When managing and refining large user stories, or 'epics', the most effective method is often to break the story down by its subsystems or components - in this case, the different modules it impacts. Each of these modules can then become its own user story which can be tackled in individual sprints. This method allows the team to focus on one module at a time, improving overall code quality and manageability. The other answers suggest breaking down the story by code complexity or into coding, testing, and integration tasks, or even splitting it randomly. These methods, although possible, can lead to an uneven workload, confusion amongst team members about who is responsible for what, and loss of the context of the overall user story. By breaking up the story based on the modules it impacts, the team can more effectively manage their work and maintain consistency and understanding of the overall goal.

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