User story mapping is a great technique for building a shared understanding and adding more dimensions to your backlog. How can you use it on your project if your team is distributed? There are options. We used FeatureMap.
Experience report co-presented with Tristan Thevenin at Big Apple Scrum Day 2015 http://www.bigapplescrumday.org/
9. How Story mapping saved us (personal take
aways)…
9
Visual / Structured (2D/xD) / Flexible / Readable
backlog /roadmap for
shared big picture / more discussions / better decisions / alignment Big picture with
details
10. Zoom Out and Think:
0 Who will be using the system?
0 What are the high level
activities they will perform?
0 What order will they do it in?
10
First Activity
1
Activity 2 Activity 3
Last Activity
4
User Story Mapping
11. Zoom In and Discover
0 What tasks will the user
typically do in each activity?
0 In what order?
11
First Activity
1
Activity 2
Last Activity
4
User Story Mapping
Activity 3
Task
1.1
Task
1.2
Task
4.1
Task
3.2
Task
3.1
Task
2.3
Task
2.2
Task
2.1
Task
4.2
12. Zoom In and Discover
0 What other tasks might the
user do in each activity?
0 In what order?
12
First Activity
1
Activity 2
Last Activity
4
User Story Mapping
Activity 3
Task
1.1
Task
1.2
Task
4.1
Task
3.2
Task
3.1
Task
2.3
Task
2.2
Task
2.1
Task
4.2
Task
1.1.a
Task
1.1.b
Task
1.1.b
Task
1.2.a
Task
1.2.b
Task
4.1.a
Task
3.2.a
Task
3.1.a
Task
2.3.a
Task
2.2.a
Task
2.1.a
Task
4.2.a
Task
2.1.b
DP Hello everyone and welcome to our experience report on user story mapping.
My name is Dana Pylayeva, I am an Agile Coach at Rakuten Marketing.
I am excited to be here today at Big Apple Scrum Day and to share the stage with CEO of FeatureMap, Tristan Thevenin.
TP <any greeting>
DP User story mapping is a pretty popular topic nowadays.
Until recently only a few people who were lucky to work with Jeff Patton or attended one of his workshops were familiar with user story mapping.
The picture has changed drastically, when in September of 2014 he published a book – yes, “user story mapping”
How many of you have read this book by now? And how many of you tried using this approach in your projects?
User story map is a way to manage you product backlog and do it effectively.
A great tool to promote rich conversations between developers and the user.
it helps to sync up on priorities and slice this product backlog into meaningful increments that deliver value.
And unlike your typical product backlog, it keeps these details aligned with a big picture.
TT You are right, Dana. Story Mapping is all about giving the big picture to SCRUM teams. I have a scary story to share with you, but before I do that, I would like to start with the analogy.
Here is a story that could have happened to me as it is my first time in New York. Dana, what if you had asked to meet on Washington street?
I would have gone and look for pictures of where to meet.
But I have found 2 views of what seems to be Washington street.
DP: Just use the google maps to find out how to get there. It should be too far from where we are!
TT:
Good idea! Oups, here again, I do find 2 plans which can lead me to the Washington street destination. I have the destination, I have plans but still I miss something.
DP:
Ha! I think you were zooming in so much on this map that I am now lost too!
Can you zoom out and show the big picture?
Tristan
Sure. Ok, now I see the issue! I was missing the big picture, the one we need to set up the context and share.
TT: Sure. Ok, now I see the issue! I was missing the big picture!
TT: And this is exactly what I missed when I started my company. The big picture…
Back in 2012, we were laureate of the French National contest for Innovation and did believe that because we were (smart?) engineers, seasoned project managers on international and cross cultural projects with distributed team, we would successfully deliver to the market our innovations…
The reality check has been quite different.
Indeed, we know how to execute a project.
But, lacking of product management experience and a smart go to market approach we ended at:
Running after any idea a lead would give us
Changing priority every week
Building a monster
Obviously, we were lost and did not know what to do and what to measure.
The company was about to be terminated.
Dana: Wow, that sounds like a beginning of a great business novel. And what happened next?
TT: And then, we found a book from Jeff Patton on User Story Mapping and another book from Eric Ries on lean Start up and … no good tool to support these approaches
Tristan
We saw an opportunity for us to build a tool to do the right thing and also to bring a solution for all the people having to define and share a big picture and then run a project
Here are my personal take-aways from using Story mapping and having received so many testimonies from FeatureMap users.
When you draw a visual target which is flexible enough to be changed upon discussions, you get natural commitment and engagement from the stakeholders. The more you share, the more you discuss and the better the decisions are. It works for small and large teams, distributed or not and many kind of projects.
D: Thank you Tristan, what a great story! I am sure people in the room are now eager to try building a user story map as soon as the get to know how!
You will start building your story map from left to right.
You will start building your story map from left to right.
You will start building your story map from left to right.
You will start building your story map from left to right.
Give some history and figures and references on FeatureMap