For an area of an application that has been developed, the request has come in to remove an item from a menu.
I know this is a small thing, but how do you treat it in Scrum? I’m used to using User Stories for adding functionality, not removing.
So my question is: Should I create a user story for this, somehow phrased to do with removing the button? Or is there a better way or dealing with this?
Yes, you should write a user story.
Use a story for everything you do. It forces you to answer the question “what business value is there in doing this work?”. Writing user stories also forces you to understand who benefits from the work.
Plus, you are adding something. Presumably, the removal is because the feature isn’t used or is buggy, or replaced by some other feature. Thus, you are adding usability to the product.
For example, the story might read like th is:
As the product owner of product X, I want feature Y to be removed so
that our UI is more streamlined, and only provides features that are
genuinely useful to our customers.
The value isn’t in the user story per se, it’s in the work done to create the story. By writing the story, you help focus your efforts.
4
It depends on the reason that the button is being removed:
-
If it is being removed because the functionality is no longer
needed/used, then write a user story indicating the business
requirement change. -
If it is being removed because it’s confusing, or behaving
improperly, then tie the work to the bug that you’re fixing. -
If it is being removed because it’s a UI change, then tie it to the
tech debt story that details that re-work.
Otherwise, stop doing unnecessary work and/or tell business to stop dictating to the team how your UI should look.