Stoos is the name of a rapidly growing Network of leaders, change agents, idea farmers, who are seeking to improve the way we do business. It sees itself as a container for a diverse set of theories, philosophies and movements whose greatest common factor might be the belief that organisations should be seen as living networks of individuals rather than as a machine.
Many ScrumMasters and Product Owners are constantly searching for the perfect User Story format. The “As a <Role> I want <Functionality> so that <Motivation>” schema is widely used, but in many organisations it has become a standard to put way more preparation than that into the definition of the User Story's details in preparation of the Planning meeting.
Many projects start with a specified budget, and Agile methods are perfectly suited for them because they give us the tools to continuously adjust the scope throughout the project—as opposed to more rigid ones that rely on correct up-front, long-term, estimates and an immutable environment. And every project has a scope, the very reason for which it was started. In an ideal world, the scope would be determined by nothing but a product vision, with everything else left for the team to craft.
All you need to start an agile project are two things: a vision and a backlog of things to build during the first few weeks. In many cases these things are represented as user stories. It is the product owner's (PO) or product manager's (PM) task to keep that backlog in order: Writing new user stories, prioritising and re-prioritising them and disposing of them when they become obsolete.