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User Stories as Requirements — Advantages and Disadvantages

publish date: 2026/06/04 22:55:37.521453 UTC

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In extreme programming, user requirements are expressed as user stories — short, scenario-based descriptions written on story cards, each capturing a specific user need. The development team then breaks each story into implementation tasks. Classify each statement as an advantage or a disadvantage of this approach to requirements description.

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Correct Answer

(1) Stories are understandable to customers and users without technical knowledge, making communication and prioritisation straightforward,Advantage
(2) Stories are easy to change or discard when requirements evolve — only the relevant story card and its tasks are updated,Advantage
(3) Stories capture scenarios the customer can relate to, making it easy to generate acceptance tests from them,Advantage
(4) Stories are too informal and high-level to capture non-functional requirements such as performance, security, or reliability,Disadvantage
(5) A single story may not capture all the dependencies and interactions between requirements, making it hard to reason about the system as a whole,Disadvantage
(6) Stories can be ambiguous — without a detailed requirements document, different team members may implement the same story differently,Disadvantage

Explanation

Advantages: stories are understandable by non-technical customers; easy to update or discard when requirements change; naturally generate acceptance tests. Disadvantages: stories are too informal to capture non-functional requirements; individual stories do not expose cross-story interactions or system-wide concerns; lack of formal documentation makes stories potentially ambiguous and harder to reason about as a coherent whole.

Reference

Software Engineering, Ian Sommerville, 9th edition

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