A comparative study of software tools for user story management
Affiliation:
1. Communication & Media Management, Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University, Hughes Hall, Rm. 513 441 East Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458, USA,;2. Business Information Systems Group, National University of Ireland, Galway, J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics, University Road, Galway, Ireland;1. Jozef Stefan Institute, Jamova cesta 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia;2. Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien - WU Vienna, Institute for Information Business, Building D2, Entrance C, 3rd Floor, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria;3. University of Ljubljana, School of economics and business, Kardeljeva ploscad 17, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia;4. University of Ljubljana, Faculty of computer and information science, Vecna pot 113, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia;1. Lifia, Fac. de Informática, UNLP, Argentina;2. CONICET, Bs As, Argentina;3. Dep. Informática, PUC-Rio, RJ, Brazil
Abstract:
ContextUser stories have become widely accepted in agile software development. Consequently, a great number of software tools that provide, inter alia, support for practices based on user stories have emerged in recent years. These tools may have different features and focus in terms of support for agile requirements engineering (RE) concepts and practices.ObjectiveThe present study aims to provide a deep insight into the current capabilities and future trends of software support for agile RE practices based on user stories.MethodA comparative qualitative study of a set of agile software tools has been conducted according to the following criteria: coverage of the key functional requirements, support for basic agile RE concepts and practices, and user satisfaction with the tool. The criteria for tool selection were: diversity of software tools, high rating on the user-stories community Web site (http://www.userstories.com), and availability for review.ResultsThe results show a generally good coverage of key functional requirements related to management of user stories and epics, high-level release planning and low-level iteration planning. On the other hand, user-role modeling and persona support have not been addressed at all, and it has been found that requirements for acceptance testing support were completely covered by only one tool. More importantly, the study has revealed significant differences in the way different tools support agile RE concepts and practices (if at all). Finally, qualitative analysis of user reviews has demonstrated that practitioners prefer tools that are easy to set up, easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to customize, over more sophisticated but simultaneously more demanding tools.ConclusionAlthough the progress that has been made since the inception of these tools is quite clear, there is still room for improvements in terms of support for various agile RE practices within a specific agile process.
