Agile software development is a fast paced and complex environment. Goals seem to be moving out from under you all of the time. In a complex environment, where things keep changing, how do you get the information organized into user stories to enable you to meet goals? Vertical Slicing of user stories is a practice that will help you get the information organized and enable you to meet goals. It also helps you to build both more effectively and efficiently. Writing user stories with this practice helps you to obtain and run with software requirements in a much better way than traditional requirement gathering practices.

Vertical Slicing of user stories is absolutely critical if you want to break stories down, have stories you can complete, and aim to deliver value. Writing user stories is how you get work to the team in Agile software development. It is a fundamental process, yet, it can be improved upon. User stories are how you communicate the work, but most importantly, how you initiate and start the work. Therefore, getting user stories right will set you down the right path. Make Vertical Slicing one of your software development best practices, and you will see better user stories.

If you ask these questions!

• How do you guide software and meet goals, when they seemingly change on you?
• How do you write better requirements for Agile software development?
• How do you write better user stories with better software requirements?
• How do you write user stories that are achievable?
• How do you get the information you need to create software effectively and on time?
• How do you break down work and software requirements?
• What requirements analysis practices help with system design and writing better user stories?
• How do you write user stories focused on getting user value?

Author TJ Rerob dives into the practice of Vertical Slicing. What does this mean for software development? Why is Vertical Slicing of user stories and systems better than alternatives? IE, Vertical Slicing vs Horizontal Slicing of systems. What are the benefits to be gained by breaking up your user stories using the Vertical Slicing practice? There are also questions to help with breaking up user stories. With over 15 years of experience in software development, I have seen practices that work and practices that struggle. Using the practice of Vertical Slicing on user stories is one of the single greatest improvements a team can make to how they organize around the Agile software development work.

The Vertical Slicing guide will provide tangible ideas and explanations on the Vertical Slicing practice. These are immediately impactful for the Agile development team. Take them and help to break down and break apart your stories. Allowing the team to arrive at stories that you can realistically take on and complete. User stories that you can then add to over time, incrementally gaining on the goals you aim to achieve.

What you will gain

With Vertical Slicing, break stories down into their most basic blocks of work. Allowing for better prioritization and sequencing based on value to be gained. When you have this, you can take on the work that will gain value effectively. Over time, that value is added to piece by piece, and you start to see real gain in your software product. Vertical Slicing is the practice to help get you there. So what do you gain with Vertical Slicing of your user stories, it is value. Vertical Slicing of Agile software development user stories helps to break apart and organize the work, which builds understanding. This piece by piece understanding also helps with greater knowledge sharing for system design.

Who This Book Is For

This is a book for any member of the Agile software development team. It extends to anyone working in product development and product management. The concepts help to build any product and apply to the whole process, not just Agile software development.