Maintaining User Stories AND Use Cases [closed]

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As the topic states I would like to know when it is helpful to have both:

user stories and use cases

In my understanding, user stories are more abstract goals while use cases are more in detail. (beside the notation)

So are there any benefits for maintaining them both or is it better to only choose one of them?

(refering to an international medium to big project)

Answer 1

I would go as far as saying that having both is an anti-pattern.

In agile development we want to keep the amount of red tape and bureaucracy to a minimum - stories can be little as a sentence on a card. All the rest can be defined in-iteration, while coding, and possibly face to face.

On the other hand, a user story is synonym with deciding ahead of time what should be implemented. This, in agile development is doubly bad:

1. It's directive and not inclusive: stories describe what we are trying to achieve and use cases describe how we decided that something generally unspecified should be achieved.
2. It's work ahead of time and thus a risk. Not all stories are going to be implemented. Not all stories will be implemented in the way one thinks at the time of writing them.

Answer 2

User stories are referring to the goal of what you want to be achieved (the need). A user story can be technical or functional and it can be "splitted" (described) in tasks. Tasks are technical. It's more like use cases.

In my option, you don't have to maintain use cases AND user stories because one is overlapping the other.

Answer 3

From a purist standpoint, one or the other. However, based on personal past experience, combining use cases with user stories maybe advisable for teams transitioning from waterfall to agile, especially in the case of geographically dispersed teams. i.e., until team members get skilled at writing, handling and understanding user stories.

In another scenario, creating use cases could be a project delivery requirement for teams starting off on a experimental agile initiative, in a large waterfall based organization.