How to get correct user stories in BDD? [closed]

Question

We are about to start a new project and our company wants to go with the agile approach of where the business analyst writes user stories and from that we should be able to do BDD to flesh out our code.

However, the business analyst has been very vague and has given user stories which cover half of what certain pieces of functionality must do.

Since there are so many areas that are a bit "grey", should a developer sit with him and make sure that all areas are covered?

I suppose from an agile point of view, the business analyst cannot cover all the user stories but what I am afraid of is we will start developing code and not all the user stories are covered until the end. Also, we could have several developers all becoming experts in certain areas of functionality with the business analyst and no overall designer/analyst to bring these areas together to make sure they will all work.

Another approach would be to get someone who has the role of the architect and via DDD fleshes out the overall design. But this would still involve having all the user stories.

So what is the best approach?

Answer 1

You don't necessarily need all the user stories up front. The main reason you might want this is to determine how long the project will take and get slightly better accuracy. There are other ways of engaging the trust of stakeholders.

Try this. Ask the BA to think of all the capabilities that the system needs to provide - all the things that the system will enable the user or the company to do. As a guide, we had about 30 of these on a 1 year project, and they were single words or acronyms.

Some of these will be very easy to understand, and will be the same as other, similar projects. Others will be new, or you'll be ignorant about them. This is a great place to engage the BA's help.

If the BA can't help enough, deliver these risky things as soon as possible and get feedback as frequently as you can. If the BA can't help you with that feedback then you need help from a stakeholder who's more directly involved.