Mastering User Stories
Turn Your Backlog into Delivery-Ready Work
Mastering User Stories turns your backlog into delivery-ready work.
Learn how to write, refine, and manage user, job, and technical stories so work is clear, testable, and ready to build.
- Work directly with your own backlog items
- Improve real stories, not theoretical examples
- Refine upcoming work for immediate use
- Build habits that carry into your next sprint
Chosen by companies in SaaS, Healthcare, Government, Consulting, Financial Services, Retail, Energy, Aerospace and more.
Taught by People Who Helped Shape Scrum
Mountain Goat Software was founded by Mike Cohn, a co-founder of both the Scrum Alliance and the Agile Alliance, and author of some of the most influential books in Agile software development, including User Stories Applied, Agile Estimating & Planning, and Succeeding with Agile.
For more than 25 years, Mountain Goat Software has helped teams and organizations adopt Scrum in ways that actually work—across industries, team types, and organizational cultures.
When you train with Mountain Goat, you’re learning from people who have:
- Helped define modern Agile practice
- Guided thousands of teams
- Seen what works, and what doesn’t, over decades
What This Course Focuses On
This is a hands-on, private course built around your team’s real work.
Where possible, your backlog items are used throughout the course for exercises, discussions, and refinement, so everything stays grounded in your context.
During the course, participants will:
- Improve user and job stories using real examples
- Refine backlog items to make them ready for delivery
- Practice splitting techniques on actual work
- Apply estimation only where it adds value
- Use concepts immediately within their team environment
How We Approach Teaching User Stories
Stories Are About Value, Not Format
A good story is not one that matches a template. It is one that helps the team understand who needs what and why it matters.
Refinement Is Ongoing, Not One-and-Done
Good stories do not need all their detail up front. We teach teams how to refine stories over time, adding detail when it helps and not before.
Split to Deliver, Not Just to Shrink
Smaller is not enough. We teach teams to split stories into valuable increments they can finish, learn from, and build on.
Conversation Beats Specification
The goal is not to write everything down up front. It is to create shared understanding so a team can build with confidence.
A Unique, Interactive Learning Experience
Team Home is a collaboration platform that we designed for our courses. It is optimized for live, online training. Participants benefit by collaborating in ways beyond what is possible with generic whiteboard software such as Mural or Miro. Instructors can observe activity across all rooms, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of exercise debriefs.
Tools and Resources You’ll Continue Using
Your registration includes access to tools that support your work beyond the class:
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MGS AI Toolkit for coaching, story-splitting and backlog items
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Planning Poker® for collaborative estimation
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Elements of Agile™ assessment to help teams identify improvement opportunities
What You'll Be Able to Do
Write clear, testable product backlog items
Choose and apply user and job stories appropriately
Create effective acceptance criteria using multiple approaches
Split large items into small, deliverable work
Run efficient, outcome-focused refinement sessions
Estimate at the right time, and avoid unnecessary estimation
Use story mapping to better understand and organize user workflows
Your Mountain Goat Instructors
Mountain Goat has handpicked instructors that share our training values. These are people with deep experience, who are leading teams with agile today and can give you real-world answers about what does and doesn’t work.
Mike Cohn
With 20+ years of agile training experience, Mike has honed a talent for explaining agile concepts with clear illustrations and real-life examples. Participants enjoy his passion for teaching the agile methodologies in a relatable and digestible way.
Read more...Mike is CEO of Mountain Goat Software, and one of the industry’s most well-respected Certified Scrum Trainers. He is the author of User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development, Agile Estimating and Planning, and Succeeding with Agile. He is a co-founder and former board member of the Scrum Alliance, and a co-founder of the non-profit Agile Alliance, home of the Agile Manifesto.
Scrum Certifications include: CSM, CST, CSPO, A-CSM, CSP-SM, CSP-PO
Lance Dacy
As a Certified Scrum Trainer, Lance has trained and coached teams through many successful Scrum implementations since 2011, from Fortune 20 companies to small start-ups. Lance is also experienced in showing agile coaches and managers how to help cross functional, self-organizing teams deliver high value for customers as early as possible by using Scrum.
Read more...Lance is a true evangelist for Scrum, having founded the successful DFW Scrum User Group in Dallas as an outlet for professional networking and a community sounding-board for Scrum. He has a fun and generous personality, and shares his passion for Scrum in every course.
Scrum Certifications include: CSM, CST, CSPO, CAL-1, A-CSM, A-CSPO, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, Path to CSP Educator, Scrum Foundations Educator.
Brian Milner
Starting out as a developer, Brian worked up through management layers, then transitioned to Scrum Master, then Coach and now Certified Scrum Trainer. His practical experience in both waterfall and agile organizations helps him clarify what works and what doesn’t, plus he has many years’ experience helping teams transition to agile.
Read more...Brian also brings more than 20 years of software development experience to his classes. People remark on his ability to answer even tough questions with ease, enthusiasm, and insight.
Scrum Certifications include: CSM, CST, CSPO, CAL-Educator, CAL-1, A-CSM, A-CSPO, CSP-CM, CSP-PO, Path to CSP Educator, Scrum Foundations Educator.
Scott Dunn
Scott Dunn has more than 20 years of experience in management, project management (PMP), engagement management, and software development (MCSD). He’s worked in a variety of areas and industries from social media to mortgage banking, healthcare, defense, e-commerce, plus state and local government sectors.
Read more...He has helped coach and train at dozens of companies transitioning to an agile approach using Scrum. Clients have included EMC/Dell Technologies, Yahoo!, LaserFiche, Kaiser Permanente, Rovi/Tivo, eBay, and GE Healthcare.
Scott is passionate about strengths-based teams and solutions-based approaches to people and organizational issues. He is an enthusiastic and encouraging trainer.
Scrum Certifications include: CSM, CST, CSD, CSPO, CEC, Educator-CAL, CAL-1, CAL, A-CSM, A-CSD, CSP-SM, CSP-PO, CSP-D, Path to CSP Educator, CSD Educator, Scrum Foundations Educator.
Lucy O’Keefe
Lucy has been a developer, Product Owner and Scrum Master in many scrum teams during her 28 years of IT experience. This brings a valuable perspective to the Teaching Assistant role as she helps students have a great training experience.
Read more...“I just love it when I see the light bulb go off during a class and know that the student really gets it.”
Lucy also brings a rich travel experience to her role. She is originally from Brazil, lived in Italy during high school and then came to the US for college—where she lived in the same dorm as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson! These days she resides in Charlotte, NC with her two wonderful dogs Chloe and Ollie.
Cort Sharp
Cort has degrees in physics and computer science, as well as experience coding and QA testing. If you’ve taken a live, online course with us you may have seen Cort in his producer’s role, making sure things run smoothly and students have a great experience. He also acts as Scrum Master for the team of producers, making sure that they have the support needed to do their work with confidence.
Read more...“It’s awesome being able to end a 2-day class with people shocked at how quickly it went by and how engaging and fun it was.”
In addition to his love for agile, Cort is also a serious swimmer and has been coaching swimmers for 5 years. He once met Michael Phelps and a wingspan comparison ensued. Cort’s was longer, but it is believed Phelps was gracious about the defeat and no longer holds it against Cort.
Join thousands of Scrum Masters, agile practitioners, and leaders who have learned Scrum with Mountain Goat Software—and applied it successfully in the real world.
Course Includes:
Certification Credits
Course Outline
What Is Agile Planning
- What is a user story
- Four times to write stories
- Refinement vs. story-writing workshops
- Common problems teams experience with stories
Story-Writing Workshops
- Participants, duration, and significant objectives
- A common story template - INVEST criteria
- Improving stories
- Common story-writing problems
Backlog Refinement & Acceptance Criteria
- Definition of Done and acceptance criteria
- Acceptance criteria vs. test cases
- From stories to test cases
- Who writes acceptance criteria
- Improving acceptance criteria
- Acceptance criteria best practices
- When to stop refining
- Acceptance criteria as substories
Job & Technical Stories
- When to use job stories
- Converting user stories into job or technical stories
Story Mapping
- What story mapping is and why it matters
- Creating a story map for a significant objective
- Introduction to roadmapping
Splitting Stories
- Common bad splitting approaches
- SPIDR technique
- Key cautions when splitting stories
- Splitting oversized stories effectively
Got a Question?
What happens when you contact us?
- We’ll get back to you within a day.
- Answer your training questions and discuss any custom needs.
- Recommend the best agile training path for your teams and goals.
- Want to talk to someone? Schedule a call.