SQA-QC-Checklists/qc-user-story.md

Quality Criteria: User Story

Metadata

Key	Value
ID	QC-US-001
CrossReference	QC-UCD-001, QC-UC-001, QC-BC-001
DomainLanguages	IT Professional English

Version History

Date	Status	Author	Reviewer	Change	Commit
2026-10-01	Accepted	Jens Tirsvad Nielsen	S07	First public release (1.0.0)	—

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Purpose

User stories capture user-valued increments of functionality in a lightweight, negotiable format that drives backlog prioritization, estimation, and iterative delivery planning.

Quality Criteria Checklist

Level: Mandatory criteria are the baseline every instance must meet; Optional criteria are advanced and may be deferred.

#	Criterion	Level	ISO/IEC 25010 Characteristic(s)	Notes
1	Follows INVEST criteria (Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable)	Mandatory	Functional Suitability, Maintainability
2	Written in "As a / I want / So that" form	Mandatory	Usability
3	Clear, testable acceptance criteria are included	Mandatory	Functional Suitability, Reliability
4	Traceable to a use case or epic	Mandatory	Maintainability
5	Story is sized to fit within a single iteration	Optional	Maintainability
6	Story statement avoids technical implementation detail	Optional	Usability, Maintainability
7	Role named in the story matches an actor defined in the Use Case Diagram	Mandatory	Compatibility

Common Defects

• Compound stories bundling multiple unrelated goals ("As a... I want X and Y and Z")
• Missing, vague, or unverifiable acceptance criteria
• Role that does not match any actor defined elsewhere
• Stories phrased as implementation tasks rather than user-valued outcomes

Traceability Rule

• Backward: Use Case Diagram checklist (QC-UCD-001), Use Case checklist (QC-UC-001) (Brief/Casual), Business Case checklist (QC-BC-001)
• Forward: Iteration/Sprint backlog, Fully Dressed Use Cases (QC-UC-001), acceptance tests — the backlog/tests are outside the QC checklist chain

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