Alex Stetsenko

If you are serious about your user stories, there is a great article by Richard Lawrence about patterns for splitting user stories.

Richard suggests nine patterns based on INVEST model (Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable). The key is to split user stories into good smaller stories rather than create a story for each architectural layer (one story for the UI, another for the database – this may satisfy small but fails at independent).

Although this is a “must read” article there is also a shorter version in a form of cheet sheet.