User story
A one-sentence description of a need from the user's side: "As a ___, I want ___ so that ___."
What it is
A user story frames a feature around a person and their goal: "As a manager, I want to see all pending expense requests in one place so that I can approve them quickly."
The "so that" is the valuable part. It tells the builder why the feature exists, which helps them make good small decisions you didn't spell out.
Stories pair naturally with acceptance criteria: the story says what and why; the criteria say how you'll know it's done.
How to ask for it
“Add a page with expenses.”
“User story: as a manager, I want a single list of my team's pending expenses, oldest first, so that I can approve or reject them in one sitting without opening each one.”
"A page with expenses" lacks a who and a why; a user story gives the builder the purpose behind the screen.
You've seen this in
- AAgile team backlogs
- LProduct tickets in Linear and Jira
- WWorkshop sticky notes