User Story Mapping

 

User Story Mapping is a way to have everyone on the team collaborate on discussing and brainstorming the problem domain. It starts with the big picture: who are the users and what do they want to do. Then drills down into more detail leading to stories which can then be prioritized and organized into releases. 

User Story mapping fosters shared understanding. It helps the team understand the big picture. It is an active process where everyone is involved. It is a pattern for making sense of the whole product or feature and works by breaking down large into smaller and smaller pieces. "we're building a map that lets us tell a really big story about the system". 

User Story Mapping involves a hierarchy of:

  • Users
  • Activity - something a User needs to do
  • Task - steps within activity
  • Stories - broken out from Tasks

It's arranged in a hierarchy top down, left to right. You could use a tool like Figma (even trello?) or just post its on a white board. The content and the process is what's important. I like the idea of a physical board which is kept close to the team building the system, reminding them of the big picture and "how far they've come".

Who
  • everyone on the team (eng, design, product, qa, dm) but also product marketing, content team and  stakeholders 
  • in some cases initial high level may be a smaller group
  • idea: could split into 2 groups, ask to do same mapping and then see when come back what each found and what gaps found

Story mapping

  • becomes a delivery tool
  • supports release planning
  • creates discussion about workflows without doing designs

Organize Stories by Release

Prioritize Outcomes. Cut Releases to deliver beneficial outcomes to users

  • What are our biggest riskiest assumptions?
  • What do we need to learn

Story map is dynamic

  • review between slices releases 

References:
  • colleagues at work
  • https://www.jpattonassociates.com/the-new-backlog/

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