Should a developer assign a user story to him/herself

[Hasan Teltik]

As you know user stories are issues that start something like this: "As a user, I want to be able to choose the source of products to display from". I wonder if a developer can/should take this issue and start working on it. I mean, this issue alone might involve lots of different tasks that are technically better defined.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

That is something you need to decide within your processes.

If you're going along the Agile lines with Scrum or Kanban, then the usual idea is "people prioritise stuff, there's a known pile of stuff that needs doing, developers would grab the next one from the pile as they feel is appropriate".  That does rely on you keeping your developers informed and in touch with product owners to ensure they pick the right ones. 

At the other end of the scale, some processes will never allow a developer to choose, they'll discuss who is most appropriate and then allocate the work at a higher level.

It's entirely up to the way you want to work.

[Hasan Teltik]

We're trying to go the Scrum way, so it's ok for a developer to pick a story and start a progress on it. This means the developer will probably interact with the product owner in case he/she needs more details regarding the issue, am I correct?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

That is what I said, yes.