The Story of Why

In Order to <INSERT BUSINESS VALUE>,

As a <INSERT BENEFICIARY>,
I Want <INSERT BEHAVIOR>

Seems obvious doesnt it?
Apparently not!
I think it is easy to fall into the trap of stating What Who and How instead of WhyWho and What.

All too frequently Client stories are missing the Business Value

• If we cannot visualise the Value of a story then we are powerless to prioritise the work.
• If the Value of a story is not apparent then we are unable to know if our teams are helping business to make more money

To take a highly disguised example, which is somewhat typical on many teams  :

This reads to me as WHAT, WHO, HOW.

Basically we are looking for WHY, WHO and WHAT

First thing to scrutinise is, whether it is clear to all parties how is this offering business value?
"filter stuff based on a specific value flag" doesn't clarify that in my opinion.

Second of all having the "As a" section as another application is a big warning sign that the story may not be cross functional

Last of all for the "I want" section it is clear in this case there is a clear instruction of how this should be implemented, and this eliminates the freedom of the developer to identify the best solution

An arguably better version of this could be:

In order to prevent the overhead of processing superfluous messages
As a consumer
I want to filter messages based on a specific value flag.

Perhaps a lot of people think 'So What!!' about the fastidiousness of this, but it IS Very important for a number of reasons:

1. By revealing the business value, you are enabling the team to have the potentialto identify a better solution
2. If the team clearly understand the business value, they can be ruthless in not creating wasted gold plating.
3. By removing the HOW part of the story, you are giving the freedom to the team to implement the solution in the way they see fit.
4. By stating the direct business Beneficiary, you are creating a vertical slice of the application instead of a horizontal slice.
5. Visualising the value gives clarity for providing clear prioritisations.

Sorry Eric, you are a genius, but we will engage our brain before doing anything thanks!