The concept of user stories has its roots as one of the main tenets of Extreme Programming. In simple terms, user stories represent an effective means of gathering requirements from the customer (roughly akin to use cases). This book describes user stories and demonstrates how they can be used to properly plan, manage, and test software development projects. The book highlights both successful and unsuccessful implementations of the concept, and provides sets of questions and exercises that drive home its main points. After absorbing the lessons in this book, readers will be able to introduce user stories in their organizations as an effective means of determining precisely what is required of a software application.

Mike Cohn是敏捷聯盟的發起成員之一，並擔任其文章項目的總監。他1984年開始編程，1988年開始管理軟件項目，客戶包括富達投資、維亞康姆、寶潔、NBC和花旗銀行。Mike寫本書時是Fast401k的軟件工程副總裁。這傢行業領先公司提供基於互聯網的401(k)檔案保存和管理解決方案。Fast401k嚮金融服務行業客戶提供自主品牌的e401k軟件産品，作為外包服務供應商，利用專有技術實現規模經濟效應。在本書之前，Mike著有或閤寫瞭4本編程方麵的書籍