Improving Scrum User Stories and Product Backlog Using Work System Snapshots

Lack of domain knowledge is often considered a reason for improper elicitation and specification of requirements of a software system. The work system method helps analysts understand the business situation to be supported by the software system. This research investigates the effects of preparing a work system snapshot, a key artifact of the work system method, on the quality of initial requirements specifications represented within the Scrum methodology. Those specifications take the form of a product backlog, a set of user stories to be addressed). The findings from a controlled experiment conducted with 165 students in a software engineering course indicate that the preparation of work system snapshot results in a significant reduction in invalid user stories and increase in valid user stories in the product backlog.