Advanced User Stories

How to Write Them, How to Split Them

- From a Product Owner's Perspective

User Stories are a bit of a paradox to many Business Analysts.  We spend our whole careers learning how to craft detailed functional requirements that contain lots of information useful to the team, only to be confronted on Agile projects by simple sentences called User Stories, apparently designed to get conversations started.

There is a lot more going on under the surface of these seemingly simplistic artifacts, however.  In this presentation we will look at User Stories more closely to understand how they are built, and we will also look carefully at the role of their master on the project – the Product Owner.

Speaker: Rick Clare

Rick Clare is Partner, Practice Director, Senior Instructor, and Consultant for ConsultUSA and PMCentersUSA. In his position as Practice Director, Rick is responsible for maintaining the business analysis courseware, providing expert consulting services to companies on business analysis, and constructing customized training material targeted at an individual company's methodologies. Rick is routinely engaged as a Consultant where he lends his experience to clients seeking improvement in the areas of IT project execution, project management and business analysis.   In addition to serving as a consultant, instructor and presenter on project management and business analysis related topics, Rick worked in Information Technology for more than 25 years as a developer, trainer, project manager, business analyst and functional manager. He started in IT while he was in the army in 1988 and has a great deal of technical experience to back up his management and analysis skills.  His projects have spanned several industries, including; Hospital Administration, Certification Test Administration, Healthcare Insurance, Retail, Banking and Financial Services.   Rick is routinely invited as a speaker by companies and professional organizations wishing to take advantage of his experience and entertaining speaking style. Rick has presented at many PMI® and IIBA® chapter events as well as numerous conferences, such as Oracle's Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), the Oracle Developer Tools User Group (ODTUG) conference, the Building Business Capabilities Conference, the Project Management/Business Analysis World conference, and the PMI Global Congress.   Rick has worked extensively with the International Institute of Business Analysis.  He served as Vice President of Chapters at the international level for two years - the senior volunteer position in IIBA.  He led the IIBA's Chapter Development Committee and orchestrated work, contributed to, and served as editor of the IIBA's Managing Business Analysts, a book consisting of the views from a wide variety of experts in the BA arena and full of advice and guidance on how to manage BAs.  Rick was awarded IIBA's highest award for volunteer work during the Building Business Capability conference in 2011.   Rick is a PMI certified Project Management Professional (PMP®), one of the first Certified Business Analysis Professionals (CBAP®) in the world, a Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM), and an Oracle Certified Professional (OCP). Rick earned his Master's degree in Project Management (MSPM) from Northeastern University and is a graduate of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.  He also holds numerous technical certifications.