User Story Mapping

Editor's Notes

1. Step 1: Generate tasksSplit up into groups of 3 to 5As individuals, think about your morning routine – the things you do.Write down each thing you do on one post-it note. Have everyone in your group use the same colour post-it for this exercise.Step 2: Read them outHave each person read their post-its out loud to the group and then place them in the middle of the table so that you can see all the post-its at once.Comments: Notice the similarities between your post-its and other peoples. Notice also that if you missed a few things, somebody else came up with the missing tasks. You probably all have things like “Brush Teeth”, “Get Dressed”, “Eat breakfast”. All starting with verbs.Step 3: GroupNow as a group, and without talking, move the post-its that are similar to each other closer to each other, and those that are not similar, move them farther apart. Those that are exact duplicates you can eliminate or put on top of each other.Step 4: Name the groupsYou should now have some distinct groups. As a group again, start labeling these groups with a different colour post-it. Just put the group name on top of the grouping.Step 5: Now re-arrange your groups in order of time from left to right. Put the group post-it at the top and the tasks below the group, but still in order left to right.(At this point, show a simple example)Overall comments:Your first user story map!The groups are called “User Activities” – this is the backbone of your applicationThe items below are called “User Tasks” – this is the walking skeleton of your application
2. Deliver greatest value earlyPrioritizing (different interests)Difficult to see the storiesHard to ‘groom’Hard to see if you covered everything adequately
3. Boundary Object (scope). If used properly, you can use it to keep other scope out.Each story encompass all layers of the system. No value to the user without the layersHas value when completed
4. We’re going to create a second map with some more detail and more relevance to software. You can move your old map out of the way.Practice – build your own MS Outlook competitor.Step 1: Generate tasksSplit up into groups of 3 to 5As individuals, think about your usage of your favourite e-mail toolWrite down each thing you do on one post-it note. Have everyone in your group use the same colour post-it for this exercise.Step 2: Read them outHave each person read their post-its out loud to the group and then place them in the middle of the table so that you can see all the post-its at once.Comments: Notice the similarities between your post-its and other peoples. Notice also that if you missed a few things, somebody else came up with the missing tasks. You probably all have things like “Send Email”, “Read Email”, “View Calendar”, “Create Contact”, etc.Again, all starting with verbs.Step 3: GroupNow as a group, and without talking, move the post-its that are similar to each other closer to each other, and those that are not similar, move them farther apart. Those that are exact duplicates you can eliminate or put on top of each other.Step 4: Name the groupsYou should now have some distinct groups. As a group again, start labeling these groups with a different colour post-it. Just put the group name on top of the grouping.Step 5: Now re-arrange your groups in order of time from left to right. Put the group post-it at the top and the tasks below the group, but still in order left to right.Overall comments:Your second user story map!Reminder:The groups are called “User Activities” – this is the backbone of your applicationThe items below are called “User Tasks” – this is the walking skeleton of your applicationNotice how fast you were able to create a reasonable outline for your whole application?Keep this map as we will be adding to it shortly. At this point we have no user stories.
5. In your user story map you should probably have a “Compose Email” or “Create Email” user task under the “Email Management” user activity or something similar. (if not, then what kind of e-mail have you been using?)We’re going to create the stories that go under that User Activity.Step 1: Generate tasksSplit up into groups of 3 to 5As individuals, think about creating an e-mail and write one user story (just the title, don’t worry about the rest) on each post-it. Slice each story thinly.Again, have everyone in your group use the same colour post-it for this exercise but use a different colour than the ones you have used so far.Step 2: Read them outHave each person read their post-its out loud to the group and then place them in the middle of the table so that you can see all the post-its at once.Again:Notice the similarities between your post-its and other peoples. Notice also that if you missed a few things, somebody else came up with the missing tasks. Step 3: GroupNow as a group, and without talking, move the post-its that are similar to each other closer to each other, and those that are not similar, move them farther apart. Those that are exact duplicates you can eliminate or put on top of each other.Step 4: PrioritizeInstead of naming our groups, this time we are just going to prioritize them top to bottom. The ones at the top will be created first and the others second.Think about the order that each piece would have to be built (again, reminder of the I in INVEST)If you are disagreeing about any story, feel free to split it again if you can.You can do this out loud.Overall comments:Again, notice how fast you were able to create a reasonable outline for your whole application? Has requirements gathering ever been this fast for you?You would repeat this for each activity and there are other requirements facilitation techniques to use like personas, scenarios, UX Design Studio, etc. These models are all inclusive models. They involve everyone and take advantage of all ideas without resorting to the trouble that is brainstorming or even writing down the correct interview questions in order to generate your high level scope and requirements.Do this with your customer!!!
6. For PM: Scope, statusFor QA: testFor Product Owner: prioritize, groomSupport dreaming while deliveringFor arch: validate the architectureFor company: deliver early
7. Notice how if we turn this upside down it looks suspiciously like a user story map?
8. Notice how if we turn this upside down it looks suspiciously like a user story map?
9. Notice the similarities to Prune the Product Tree - #InnovationGames – the
10. Talk – keep them as stories. Remember INVEST.
11. Highlighted my favourite ones…