How to split big user stories

Question

Suppose i have a user stories like this one:

• "A user can add, modify or delete a product from a product machine. A user can configure a list of product machine available to customer int the product machine",

I think that this user stories is too big, so i want to split it in 4:

• "As a user, i want to add a product to a product machine"
• "As a user,i want to modify a product from a product machine"
• "As a user, i want to delete a product from a product machine"
• "As a user, i want to configure a list of products available into a product machine"

The point is: in my opinion the last stories is dependent with the others one, in particular the first one, because if i can't add product obviously is not possible to create a configuration of product. So these user stories aren't INVEST compliant because are not independent.

How can i manage this fact?

Answer 1

When dealing with such stories, I would say splitting them the way you have split them is better.

I agree that there would be dependencies between the stories, but splitting them would help:

1. Track progress better.
2. With distributed teams and distributed development of these user stories it will be leaner and more flexible.

As a way to track these stories however you can use tools to mark them dependent or schedule the dependent story later in development.

But that said again, there needs to be a trade-off between splitting stories and how granular the split can get that you don't end up having to micro manage it.