Ever since user stories were introduced to the world they have been compared to use cases. There has been a small war between the agilists promoting user stories and the “mainstream analysts” holding on to their use cases. But is all this rivalry really necessary?
When comparing use cases and user stories, they turn out to be different in every way:
- Use cases can be used as permanent documentation, User stories are thrown away at the end of the iteration
- Use cases are at the level of what the user is trying to achieve with the system, User stories are small enough to plan into an iteration and to iteratively and incrementally deliver value
- Use cases are a base for high level preliminary estimations, User stories are a base for development estimates
So to me they simply serve different purposes
