Rightsizing User Stories

User stories and their big brothers, epics, are an excellent way to describe requirements for a software system. They act as stakes in the ground to keep track of what the system needs to do, the type of user most interested in each feature, and the reason the requirement provides value. As projects reach a certain size, stories often become too large for a team to complete within a single sprint. The solution? Split them into smaller stories, each of which can be completed within the duration of one sprint. Dave Todaro describes proven techniques to split epics and stories, making them smaller and more manageable, while sticking with the scrum rule that each user story must deliver value. He describes the right time to split the stories, who should participate in the splitting process, what the best size is for each split story, and six different strategies you can use to decide the best way to split epics and stories.