Blog
Mert Özen's blog posts on software development, backend, frontend, and DevOps.
From Use Cases to User Stories: The 3Cs, INVEST and When Use Cases Are Still Better
A use case is the map showing the whole and its branches, while a user story is a unit of delivery from that map that gives value on its own; not every alternative flow has to become a story. We split Bookstore's institutional order use case into seven stories and acceptance conditions, covering Jeffries' card-conversation-confirmation trio, the limits of the "As a / I want / so that" template, the INVEST check, epics versus stories versus tasks, and when use cases are still better.
Story Mapping and Splitting Stories: Walking Skeleton, Vertical Slices and Choosing the First Release
A story map arranges stories left to right by the user's flow and top to bottom by priority, exposing the gaps a flat backlog hides and anchoring the first release on an end-to-end walking skeleton. We draw Bookstore's institutional order map, choose the skeleton and release slices, split large stories by rules, data, exceptions, workflow steps, manual-first and spikes, and explain why splitting by layer is a bad idea.