User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development by Mike Cohn is a must-read for anyone working in Agile environments. The book dives deep into writing, refining, and leveraging user stories with practical examples and actionable advice. Cohn’s approach is clear and systematic, making it easy to apply to real-world projects. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced practitioner, this book will enhance your understanding of how user stories can drive collaboration and deliver value.

"User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development" was recommended to me by my Agile mentor, Angry Pete.

Angry Pete was dismissive of almost everything, but he liked this book. Which made me sit up and take notice.

There may be a couple of points in the book Angry Pete wouldn't have liked. He would not have agreed that points are equivalent to "ideal days," for example - Pete would have said that points are an abstract relative story complexity - but, you know, thinking about ideal days is probably a helpful way to start thinking about points for anyone new to the topic.

I particularly love the way the book is written. It's accessible. It's actionable. It covers everything from first principles (e.g. "What is an acceptance test?" "What is a user story") and yet it somehow manages to do this without being laborious.

I've read the book multiple times. It's always on my bookshelf, ready to call upon when I'm working on an Agile project.

I really enjoy Mike Cohn's books. This one was especially useful to understand the art of writing user stories, how small/big they should be and finding that perfect balance. This book should primarily be used for understanding user stories, I would recommend you also read another book on Agile to get a complete picture of following and executing the Agile process.

Superb. A very practical and engaging book. Yet its emphasis on Scrum and XP, in particular the role of story estimation in the process, leave me cold because a good system of story prioritization can eliminate the need for having good story estimates.

Clear, readable, quick-moving yet substantive, this book combines a thorough introduction into the concept and uses of user stories, with insights into their strengths relative to similar or confusing tools like "use cases."

My expectation were too high when I started to read this book. I think the author could had expanded a little bit further on how write good user stories. The last part when he show a example project, he didn't went through all the step he showed before.
I would only recommend part I and IV of this book.

For a scrum book, this one was pretty good. For some reason, all Scrum books must start with the history of Scrum and then some story that proves how awesome Scrum is. Beyond that, I like the concept of User Stories being used with Scrum and have started doing just that in my night job.

Great book on a very specific topic. If you are involved in software development, it's a great introduction to User Stories and the Agile Methodology. Provides a basic fundamental overview of the philosophy behind user stories (as opposed to use cases or requirements) as well as several good examples.

The book could have pushed a bit and shown some more negative examples. Writing user stories is not as simple as the book makes it out to be.

Interesting insights. Need to continue integrating this into our development process.

Probably the best computer book I have ever read, and totally readable by nonprogrammers.

Overrated. This is not that bad as original scrum books from Ken Swabner, but still has a little to do with agile. Author is in the same boat with scrumalliance and selling certificates.

You should learn history and got to know that Evo Project Management established in 1960. Here is the source of agile:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Authors claim that is mathematically impossible to fail the project using Evo. What does Mike Cohn offer? Just write user story and do retrospective?

What do you need to become Product Owner? Pay 1500$. Sit down and listen for "coach" (cockroach) for 2 days and receive certificate. Pretty easy?

The supporting arguments are far from reality, the examples are so far from software development and you will wonder: had the author ever written a piece of successful software? The answer is no. Some scrum founders worked at rational software. Just download Rational Rose and see with your eyes WHAT you will develop using agile

The truth is that best people will not write any books on topic. You will have to learn by yourself. It is a pity that no one can really tell what is the main idea of Agile.

All best practices were in software for 30 years, and now you say that I should forget about use cases, and use user stories instead. Forget about function points analysis and estimate in 3,5,8....?

Can anyone tell what IS user story, what is epic? Epic in this book was a login page to web-site that should take 3 sprints and 6 weeks of work for full team. Do not forget about planing and mandatory inspect-and-improve cycle from CMMI level 5 so stolen by scrum founders and called retrospective . Is it the way to develop software nowadays? Is it agile mindset? We could say RIP for all software industry when this methodology was cloned from Kaizen and screwed up entire idea. Remember that Kaizen is only related to predictable manufacturing of real-world products and not for virtual products.

This goes even worse. Being sold the scrum for IT company, every second the least competent persons becomes either product owner or scrum master. In this book you will find only buzzwords about them and not the actual responsibilities. It is not at all clear who should do what. With different understanding of terms, everyone will see own interpretation of each scrum attribute/artifact. Being misinterpreted by top-management, invalid definition will be then communicated to the team, and team will follow invalid practices without understanding principles behind.

You can read more in "Agile good hype and ugly", and understand why I was so critical.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

GReat book from the master of the user stories.