Personal tool for authoring & organizing user stories? [closed]

Question

My company uses Jira for storing requirements, which are written in the form of User Stories ("As a ... I want ... So that...") with details in the subtasks ("Given ... when ... then...").

I write requirements, usually an iteration ahead of the developers.

I tend to draft my requirements in a word processor before putting them in Jira. I like the flexibility as I'm working out the best way to organize the information, jumping around from one story to another, using search & replace as I figure out the clearest wording, etc.

While a word processor outline is helpful for much of this, it's not so good at tracking issue links: dependencies & related requirements.

So, can anybody recommend a good tool for writing stories & tasks which allows me to diagram relationships as I write? I've been thinking in terms of something which handles concept mapping (though not mind mapping, which is generally limited to 1 central concept). This is just for my personal authoring; I don't need a project management system.

Thanks in advance.

Update: After posting this, I started wondering about TiddlyWiki. That's not quite the right tool, given its linking methods, but seems the right direction... Does that vein spark any ideas?

Volume

Answer 1

What about a simple spreadsheet (like this one)? A spreadsheet is extremely powerful (to re/organize, filter, etc) and has always worked well for me (use indentation if required or a additional column for IDs of related stories).

Earthly

Unfortunately, my reqs almost always contain multiple lines, and sometimes use tables. Also, readability is important during this writing phase as I check back for completeness and clarity. Though I'm someone who probably overuses spreadsheets, I don't think it will quite work in this case. Thanks for the idea, though. – Volume

Answer 2

We use a combination of spreadsheets and an internal Wiki for user stories. The spreadsheet holds the basic information, like ID, title, user role, priority and so on as well as a link to the Wiki page for this story.

The Wiki page then has all the information about the user story, a full description, acceptance criteria, design notes and so on.

If there are dependencies between stories these are included as links within the user story usually with a short note about what this dependency means (e.g. "This story assumes that story x has been completed" or "Y & Z are not part of this story, but of story X").

This is a pretty low-tech solution, and doesn't really support visual diagrams of relations. However, it has worked for us so far.

Washy

Answer 3

Perhaps this is overkill, but does Mingle by Thoughtworks do what you need?

(I am not actually a Mingle user, but this sounds like the sort of thing it would do.)

Anthropopathy