The Anatomy of the Feature Model - Mike Brennan - Bog

The Feature is a piece of software that is "independent, negotiable, valuable, estimateable, small and testable." It is a unit of work that meets a specific customer need and can be performed in a single Sprint or an iteration of the Software development life cycle. More than a User Story, less than a requirements specification, the Feature Model is created by the Product Owner to minimize redundant conversation then it is presented to the development team as a request to build. The model itself is designed to be as lean as possible while pulling together just enough information to create the request. This document describes that model.