Don't write user stories. Many of the tasks that can be accomplished in a sprint aren't actually useful to users. In addition, stories aren't for users, they'

Don't write user stories. Many of the tasks that can be accomplished in a sprint aren't actually useful to users. In addition, stories aren't for users, they're for developers. The story, first and foremost, must be friendly enough to the developer that they can pick it up and work it. Instead, write user features. Let the developers write the stories. It took a while to convince my team of this (agile consultants can do a real number on people sometimes) but in the end, it let everyone write down and organize what they needed to, and it helped us organize all the work in a single hierarchy.