Agile Glossary

The Three C’s

What is The Three C’s?

“Card, Conversation, Confirmation”; this formula (from Ron Jeffries) captures the components of a User Story:

  • a “Card” (or often a Post-It note), a physical token giving tangible and durable form to what would otherwise only be an abstraction:
  • a “conversation” taking place at a different time and places during a project between the various people concerned by a given feature of a software product: customers, users, developers, testers; this conversation is largely verbal but most often supplemented by documentation;
  • the “confirmation”, finally, the more formal the better, that the objectives the conversation revolved around have been reached.

Origins

  • 2001: the Card, Conversation, Confirmation model is proposed by Ron Jeffries to distinguish “social” user stories from “documentary” requirements practices such as use cases
Add to Bookmarks Remove Bookmark
Add to Bookmarks Remove from Bookmarks
Add to Bookmarks Remove from Bookmarks

Thank you to our Annual Partners​

Join us today!

Agile Alliance offers many online and in-person events and workshops for our members. If you’re not currently a member, you can join now to take advantage of our many members-only resources and programs.

Get the latest Agile news!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By subscribing, you acknowledge the Agile Alliance Privacy Policy, and agree to receive our emails.

Additional Agile Glossary Terms

An acceptance test is a formal description of the behavior of a software product, generally expressed as an example or a usage scenario. A number of different notations and approaches have been proposed for such examples or scenarios.
Test-driven development (TDD) is a style of programming where coding, testing, and design are tightly interwoven. Benefits include reduction in defect rates.
The team meets regularly to reflect on the most significant events that occurred since the previous such meeting, and identify opportunities for improvement.
A product backlog is a list of the new features, changes to existing features, bug fixes, infrastructure changes or other activities that a team may deliver in order to achieve a specific outcome.
An acceptance test is a formal description of the behavior of a software product, generally expressed as an example or a usage scenario. A number of different notations and approaches have been proposed for such examples or scenarios.
Test-driven development (TDD) is a style of programming where coding, testing, and design are tightly interwoven. Benefits include reduction in defect rates.
The team meets regularly to reflect on the most significant events that occurred since the previous such meeting, and identify opportunities for improvement.

Help us keep the definitions updated

Discover the many benefits of membership

Your membership enables Agile Alliance to offer a wealth of first-rate resources, present renowned international events, support global community groups, and more — all geared toward helping Agile practitioners reach their full potential and deliver innovative, Agile solutions.

Privacy Preference Center

Not yet a member? Sign up now