If you’re learning how to write user stories or you’re an experienced analyst looking to use AI to speed up your work, this guide is for you. Creating solid stories from stakeholder interviews is a core skill in business analysis, whether you work in Agile, hybrid, or even Waterfall-leaning environments. Good stories help teams understand intent, map user journeys, and deliver value without confusion.
Below, you’ll find 20 practical prompts to help you go from interview notes to clear user stories, acceptance criteria, and testable requirements. These prompts support better communication, tighter scope, and smoother collaboration across development teams, product owners, and stakeholders.
Let’s jump in.
Prompts for Writing User Stories from Stakeholder Interviews
I. Prompts for Creating & Defining User Stories
These prompts help you turn raw interview data into structured user stories that focus on intent, value, and user needs—not UI details or technical solutions.
1. Create a user story from a stakeholder goal
Prompt: Generate a user story based on the goal: “Enable internal colleagues to access project reports quickly.” Ensure the story follows the template: “As a [persona], I want [functionality], so that [benefit].”
2. Remove implementation details
Prompt: Review the proposed story: “As a user, I want a new button on the dashboard to access the report.” Rewrite it so the “wants to” expresses intent, avoids UI-specific elements, and stays solution-agnostic.
What Does “Solution-Agnostic” Actually Mean?
3. Produce multiple perspectives for one feature
Prompt: Given the feature “Product Search”, draft three user stories for different personas (customer, manager, internal colleague) to highlight varying needs and motivations.
4. Expand benefits for clarity
Prompt: Analyse the user story “As a first-time user, I want to easily complete the signup process.” Suggest several possible benefits to complete the “so that…” section, focusing on customer value.
5. Turn raw interview input into a concise story
Prompt: Here’s my raw interview note describing a customer need: [paste note]. Turn this into a simple, non-technical user story that uses the customer’s voice.
II. Prompts for Improving Clarity & Generating Acceptance Criteria
These prompts help refine user stories and produce clearer, testable acceptance criteria (AC). Handy when interview notes are vague—or when teams read AC differently.
6. Generate scenario-based GWT acceptance criteria
Prompt: For the story “As a manager, I want to approve expense reports, so that team members get reimbursed promptly,” write Given-When-Then acceptance criteria with multiple scenarios.
7. Create rule-based AC for complex logic
Prompt: Produce rule-based acceptance criteria for a complex component (e.g., payment processing) that defines specific conditions, valid/invalid inputs, and system responses.
8. Draft functional AC for login
Prompt: Write functional acceptance criteria for a login feature ensuring users can log in, create an account, and recover access.
9. Draft non-functional AC for checkout
Prompt: Write non-functional acceptance criteria for the checkout process focusing on performance, security, and reliability.
10. Convert negative statements to positive
Prompt: Rewrite these acceptance criteria—[paste AC]—by removing “not” and using positive language to describe desired system behaviour.
11. Switch to active voice
Prompt: Rewrite these acceptance criteria in active voice, clarifying who performs the action (e.g., “The testing team verifies…”).
12. Split ambiguous AC using “and”
Prompt: Split this AC into multiple clear statements: “The system should validate user input and display an error message.”
13. Make AC measurable and unambiguous
Prompt: Review these acceptance criteria—[paste AC]—and make them specific, measurable, and free of subjective terms like “easy to use”.
14. Add AC for error or exception scenarios
Prompt: Add acceptance criteria describing system behaviour when users provide invalid or incomplete input for the current story.
15. Define boundaries to prevent scope creep
Prompt: Review the user story and AC and propose boundary-defining criteria to limit scope and clarify what’s included and excluded.
III. Prompts for Revising, Refactoring & Validation
Use these prompts when stories get too large, unclear, or impractical. Great for grooming sessions, refinement meetings, or preparing for delivery.
16. Split a large story into smaller ones
Prompt: Here’s a large user story the team estimated at several weeks—[paste story]. Suggest multiple high-value smaller user stories that fit within a single sprint.
17. Break an epic into story-ready elements
Prompt: Break down this epic—[paste epic]—into activity-based components that can be used to create smaller user stories aligned with project goals.
18. Outline team subtasks with ownership
Prompt: For this confirmed user story—[paste story]—outline suggested subtasks, including which role (developer, QA, UX, BA) is responsible for each.
19. Identify unachievable absolutes
Prompt: Review these acceptance criteria—[paste AC]—and highlight where terms like “always” or “100%” make them unrealistic. Suggest measurable alternatives.
20. Create a basic acceptance test plan
Prompt: Based on these acceptance criteria—[paste AC]—create a simple test plan that ensures objective, consistent acceptance testing.
How to Use These Prompts Effectively
You can use these prompts manually or paste them into your preferred AI tool (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.). For best results:
- Use one prompt at a time for accuracy
- Include relevant context (interview notes, stakeholder goals, screenshots, etc.)
- Ask AI to revise stories until they reflect user intent—not solutions
- Validate with the team to ensure shared understanding
If you want a deeper comparison of user stories across methodologies, see my article on User Stories in Agile vs Waterfall. For insights on what happens when methodologies collide in practice, check out A Letter to Myself Two Years Ago: When Mixing Methodologies Goes Wrong.
Strong User Stories
Turning stakeholder interviews into strong user stories is one of the most practical skills you can build as a business analyst. These prompts make it easier to focus on the user, clarify intent, and produce acceptance criteria that teams can actually deliver against. Whether you’re starting your first story or refining a whole backlog, these prompts will help you achieve structure, clarity, and alignment with stakeholders and development teams.