Combining User Stories and Behavior-Driven Development for Contextually Rich User Stories

User stories are a powerful tool for capturing user intent, requirements, and needs. They are short, simple descriptions of a feature or functionality that a user is requesting or needing. However, sometimes user stories can lack the necessary context to fully capture the user’s needs. That’s where behavior-driven development (BDD) comes in.

BDD is a collaborative approach to software development that involves the Product Owner (normally our proxy for the business), developers, and testers. BDD focuses on defining the behavior of a system through the use of examples in normal business language. By combining user stories and BDD, you can create contextually rich user stories that provide a deeper understanding of the user’s needs.

Here’s how you can combine user stories and BDD to create contextually rich user stories:

1. Start with a user story: Begin by writing a user story that captures the intent of the request. Keep it short and simple, but make sure it’s clear and specific. The goal is to encourage conversation to identify the boundaries of a story.
2. Identify the scenarios: Once you have the user story, identify the different scenarios that could arise when the user is trying to accomplish their goal. This could include different paths the user could take, different inputs they could provide, or different outcomes they could expect.
3. Write the scenarios in BDD format: Use BDD to write out the scenarios in natural language. This will help you to capture the full context of the user’s needs and requirements. Use Given-When-Then format to write the scenarios. Be sure to leverage the BDD Example table to elaborate all of the different outcomes within each scenario.
4. Use the scenarios to guide development: Scenarios combined with example tables provide a clear understanding of the behavior of the system or application. By defining BDD example tables you are also expressing the scope boundaries of the story and aligning everyone on the team to outcomes identified by the BDD.

By combining user stories and BDD, you can create contextually rich user stories that provide a deeper understanding of the user’s needs. This will help you to create better products that meet the needs of your users.

If you would like to schedule a working session with your team or for your organization on learning how to work with BDD, contact me at michael@soundagile.com