I find it ironic that one of the most fundamentally important aspects of Agile planning is so very often terribly implemented. User Stories are the single most important thing that a Product Manager/Owner delivers to their development teams — they’re the foundation on which everything the team does is gauged; and all too often, quite frankly, they suck.
The impact of the vast suckitude of these user stories is far-ranging, and does not go unnoticed. Bad user stories are one of the biggest causes of complaints on the part of development teams, the cause of endless friction and misunderstanding on the part of stakeholders, and ultimately result in missed deadlines, failed sprints, and Armageddon itself. Okay, maybe not quite that last part, but it sometimes feels like it.