I've been doing a fair amount of requirements gathering lately across a number of projects that I've been working on. At the start of each project I needed some way to get a handle on the size of the project and I wanted to do so in a way that improved customer collaboration while helping me structure what the project was all about..

Enter user stories.  For those who don't know - user stories are requirements written in the form of "as a I want so I can ".  They're short one sentence structures that act as a mechanism for drawing out not only what a system needs to do, but also why.  The why often being the thing that is overlooked in traditional requirements documentation.  Stories are also of great use when trying to compile a product backlog and prioritise the order in which work should be carried out.

Now in times past I would've sat down with the customer, opened an Excel sheet or One Note section, and started writing stories right there and then. On the screen.  In front of them.  In one great big long list.

And this works really well.

The customer g