Job story
His argument is that the user's profile tells us less than the context in which the need arises, and that the classic template "As a [role], I want…, so that…" encourages inventing personas when it is not clear who is being served. The job story replaces that "who you are" with "when it happens to you."
The template
| Part | What it captures |
|---|---|
| When [situation] | The trigger and its context: where, under what constraints, at what moment. |
| I want to [motivation] | What the person wants to do in that situation. |
| so I can [expected outcome] | The outcome they are seeking, the underlying why. |
Example: "When I get stuck at night with some paperwork and have no one to ask, I want a clear explanation right then, so I can finish the process that same night and not lose my motivation." The situation (at night, with no one to ask, the deadline looming) does almost all the framing work.
When to use it instead of the classic template
Intercom's experience, which popularized it, and its authors' later review agree on something important: the job story complements rather than replaces. The choice depends on what drives the need:
- Use the job story when the situation is decisive: the context determines what is needed, regardless of who the person is.
- Use the classic template when what matters is distinguishing between two types of user with opposing needs, because there the role does provide information that the situation does not capture.
It is not a universal template that replaces the other one: the problem it solves was not the specific template, but using a single one for everything. The job story is one more tool in the catalog of ways to represent a backlog item, chosen with the same five questions as any other format: who benefits, what is unknown, what conversation is needed, who will read it, and what it costs to get it wrong.
Common mistake
Replacing all stories with job stories. Swapping one universal template for another solves nothing: the problem was universality, not the template. The job story shines when the situation is what matters most; forcing it where the decisive factor is distinguishing between two user profiles hides precisely the information that would be needed.
Resources
🏦 Skill User storiesState of the art and development guide · Skill Arena
📄 Historias de usuario v.5.0 [User Stories, in Spanish]Free download · Scrum Manager · Jan 2026
📄 Scrum Master en equipos con IA v.1.0 [Scrum Master in Teams with AI, in Spanish]Free download · Scrum Manager
📄 Cómo se crea una historia de usuario [How a User Story Is Created, in Spanish]Scrum Manager Blog · Jan 2023
References
- Klement, Alan. (2013). "Replacing the User Story with the Job Story."
- Klement, Alan. (2018). When Coffee and Kale Compete.
- Adams, Paul. (2013). "The dribbblisation of design," and Intercom materials on job stories.
See also
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