User story

About: User story is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1078 publications have been published within this topic receiving 23717 citations.

Agile Contracting: Managing Incentives Under Uncertain Needs

Abstract: Despite the popularity of agile methodologies for software development, there is a lack of understanding on the types of contracts that are most suitable for this environment. Several contracting formats have been used in practice. Among them, the most popular is the time-and-material contract. Under this contract, the firm pays a fixed hourly rate for the number of hours that the vendor worked, subject to incremental delivery of user stories (tasks). The less popular contract formats include but are not limited to fixed-price per sprint (iteration), and fixed-price per story. In this paper, we use a principal-agent framework in which a firm outsources an agile software development project to a vendor. Our framework captures key features of an agile software development project -- namely, the project is technically complex; the project can be modularized via a set of independent stories which can be developed in sprints; the stories deliver incremental business value to the firm; and the requirements of the project can change over time depending upon the firm's priorities (needs). Our contributions are three fold: We characterize an optimal contract for the firm in closed-form. We also generate managerial insights on how the vendor's incentive to work changes, and consequently how the optimal contracting terms offered by the principal change, depending upon the business environment. Finally, we identify conditions under which the time-and-material contract can perform poorly relative to the optimal contract. Overall, our results provide both prescriptive and qualitative guidance to firms outsourcing agile software development projects.

Chapter 5 – Human-Computer Interaction for Medical Visualization

Abstract: To efficiently support tasks in clinical practice, visual computing algorithms need to be integrated in a carefully designed user interface. The goal of regular clinical use requires to adopt a user-centered design approach. This comprises an in-depth analysis of the tasks to be solved and the target user group. Task analysis methods, such as observation and interviews, are discussed to enable readers to identify, which diagnostic or treatment processes are essential, which decisions have to be taken, which criteria are essential for such decisions, which information is needed to support such decisions, and how this information shall be displayed. The design and development of prototypes should be carried out only based on verified assumptions about the essential usage scenarios. This process usually starts with some kind of representation of the current solution, e.g., a workflow diagram or, more informally, a set of user stories. The process continues with a representation of user needs and their priorities as well as a representation of the envisioned solution. Thus, user interface design is much more than a nice visual wrap-up for some algorithms. It is instead a complex and highly iterative process, which requires early and continuous feedback from the target user group and other relevant stakeholders. Users of medical visualization systems are medical doctors from a specific discipline, such as radiology, surgery, nuclear medicine or radiation treatment, who use such tools for diagnosis support, treatment planning, and follow-up studies to evaluate the success of treatment. There are, of course, strong differences between research settings, where requirements may be vague, and more product-oriented developments, where precise functional goals and usability goals drive the whole process. We cover both situations but slightly focus on research projects. Among the many interaction techniques developed so far, 3D interaction is particularly relevant for medical visualization. Thus, we discuss 3D selection, 3D transformation and navigation. While in current practice, most medical visualization systems are operated with keyboard and mouse, more advanced input and output devices, e.g., 3D input devices, have great potential. Thus, we give an overview of such devices and the experiences gained in medical applications. A specially challenging situation for medical visualization is intraoperative use, where devices need to be sterile and surgeons need to focus on the patient. Interaction techniques and devices for these settings are also described. Finally, we discuss the evaluation of interaction techniques and user interfaces.

Understanding Use Cases: Harnessing the Power of Narratives to Comprehend Application Domains

Abstract: We investigate how stories can be used in system analysis and design to better understand the application domains The research question we explore is: How can we employ narratives as a complement to use cases to improve our understanding of application domains? To examine this question, we study the effects—ie, recall and problem solving—of supplementing a use case with a user story We focus on two features of stories that can facilitate comprehension, concrete thematic content and causal explanatory information

User Stories for Agile Business: INVEST, Carefully!

Abstract: In many agile methodologies, software requirements are expressed as user stories. The success of a software project depends strongly on the practices of software requirements engineering. INVEST is a mnemonic acronym that is used often to guide the quality of user stories. In this paper, the advantages as well as inherent limitations of INVEST are highlighted. A comprehensive approach for the quality of user stories is proposed. This approach is model-based, context-sensitive, and knowledge-equipped.

Generation of Multiple Conceptual Models from User Stories in Agile.

Abstract: While agile methodologies are commonly used in software development, researchers have identified many issues related to the requirements elicitation in agile projects. Some of these issues relate to documentation and more specifically the development, maintenance, and management of user stories. This research addresses some of the user stories challenges by proposing use of conceptual models while development of user stories. Conceptual models are visual representations that are commonly used for understanding the domain of business functions and communicating with the stakeholders. The research considers development of such conceptual models automatically (with the help of a tool) while user stories are developed. Such conceptual models can provide rich perspectives of the domain from multiple views (e.g. structural and dynamic). A detailed research plan has been developed to conduct this research.