* The Agile process is driven by customer descriptions of what is required (user scenarios)

* Agile Planning begins with the creation of user stories

* User Stories are the central focus for developers

* User Stories are derived from user/client meeting and describe how the product will be used in very specific ways

* They are derived from user scenarios and tell WHO can do WHAT and WHY

* Analogous to functional requirements

* Act as guidelines on how to plan for testing the product

* Agile team assesses each story and assigns a cost

* Stories are grouped for a deliverable increment

* Complexity of a user story is estimated in Story Points. Story points estimate the relative complexity of satisfying the requirement.

* Each user story should imply an acceptance test

* Coding: Recommends the construction of a unit test for a story before coding starts

* A commitment is made on a delivery date for all the stories of the deliverable increment

* User stories should be recorded in virtual or physical cards placed on the team's working board

Example: I.N.V.E.S.T.
I – independent, not requiring other features
N – negotiable, can be excluded, revised, etc
V – valuable, clearly contributing to product usefulness
E – estimable, reasonable development estimates can be made from the story
S – small, stories that are too big tend to be vague and miss some points
T – testable, stories need to have a means of verifying functionality

* They are created from the user stories

* Should be discrete, codable, testable elements

* Usually implemented by one programmer, but can be pair-programming

* Can be used to collect ‘metrics’: how many points per week can a developer complete?