Gathering requirements or "User Stories" is always a challenging activity in Agile or in any other approaches.In this session, I propose using mind mapping that focuses to explore "User Wish" - a vague shape of user requirements before it is written into a form of User Stories, using the modeling tool Astah.

1. Exploring User Wish
through Mind Mapping
Kenji HIRANABEMind map by Michal Splho
{Using for}

2. 2 Seeing is understanding.Seeing is understanding.

3. 3 Seeing is understanding.Seeing is understanding.
AsakusaAsakusa,,
TokyoTokyo
FukuiFukui
FukuiFukui
AsakusaAsakusa

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Agenda
• Introduction
• What is a Mind Map and Why
• Exploring User Wish using Mind
Mapping
• Demonstration using Astah
• Conclusion

5. 5 Seeing is understanding.Seeing is understanding.
Kenji HIRANABE(1/2)
• (co-)Translator of …
OO, UML books Mind Map book
XP/ Agile books
• (co-)Author of …
C++ book
Scrum book
Agile and Scrum:
Collaborative Software
Development That Connects
Customers, Engineers and
Management

6. 6 Seeing is understanding.Seeing is understanding.
Kenji HIRANABE(2/2)
• CEO of Astah.net.
• astah – UML editor (formerly known as “JUDE”)
– With Mind Map, ERD
– http://astah. net/
– Runs on
• PC, Mac, Linux, iPad

7. http://www.publickey1.jp/blog/11/10_innovation_sprint_2011.html
Innovation Sprint 2011
Jeff Sutherland Ikujiro Nonaka
me

8. Toyota Production
System
Lean
Lean Software
Development
Kanban
Lean Startup
Agile
Scrum
XP
The New New Product
Development Game
Four steps
to the epiphany
Agile and Lean
Startup
Patterns
Manufacturing Industry in Japan
2013 Yasunobu Kawaguchi

9. Copyright © 2005-2007 Kenji
HIRANABE, Some rights
reserved
9

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11. Exploring User Wish
through Mind Mapping
Kenji HIRANABEMind map by Michal Splho
{Using for}

12. 12 Seeing is understanding.Seeing is understanding.
Mind Map
• Tony Buzan
• Graphical note technique
– And more than that
• Visualize thoughts with
a radiant structure

13. 13 Seeing is understanding.Seeing is understanding.da Vinci uses Pictures and Words at the same time

15. 15 Seeing is understanding.Seeing is understanding.
“How it feels to have a stroke”
Brain Scientist Jill Bolte Taylor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU

16. Mind map by Michal Splho

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Mind Mapping
• Examples …

19. 19 Seeing is understanding.Seeing is understanding.Kent Beck’s XP 2nd

20. Product Feature Map in Release Planning

21. Seminar Ideas

22. Project Christmas Planning

23. Meeting Minutes Template

24. Guitar Chord
Diagram

25. 25 Seeing is understanding.Seeing is understanding.
“Mastering the Requirements” Process by Suzanne and James Robertson,1999.

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Mind Map
1. Keyword Oriented
2. Loose syntax and semantics
3. Fast and Easy
4. High level View
5. Evocative
6. Explore and Gather Ideas

28. 28 Seeing is understanding.Seeing is understanding.
User Stores: Ron Jeffries’ 3 Cs
• Card
– Written on note cards.
– Cards may be annotated with estimates, notes, etc.
• Conversation
– Details behind the story come out during
conversation with customer
• Confirm
– Acceptance tests confirm the story was coded
correctly

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User Stories: Mike Cohn
• Shift focus from writing to talking
• Metaphor of Trawling (by Suzanne and James
Robertson)
– Requirements can be captured with different sized
nets
– Requirements change, mature, possibly die
– Skill is a factor
• Avoid “The user”, find “Roles”
• In order to <benefit>,
as a <role>,
I want to <story>,

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Why Mind Map and User Stories Fit ?
• Shift focus from writing to talking
• Trawl requirements with coarse sized net first
• Capture Emotion, Use your right brain !
Colors, and Pictures !
– To fully utilize broadband communication and
preserve it in your brain, as the same time, keep it
into a mind map as a memento of the situation. In
the future conversation, you can use it to resume
the context back.

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User Wish Mind Map
• The first step of getting what you want.
• Get the Big Picture.
• Who? first.
• Semi-structured.
• Gather info and mine UseCases/User Stories.

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Demonstration
• City Library System Interview…

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Library Interview Mind Map

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UseCase Diagram

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User Stories Mind Map

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User Stories Spreadsheet
Also to PowerPoint!

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User WishUser Wish
Big Picture Mind MapBig Picture Mind Map
User Stories/ Use CasesUser Stories/ Use Cases
Why?Why?
Who?Who?
When?When?
Estimate, Plan, Prioritize, Test
value
role
The big picture of this presentation

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Conclusion
• Mind Mapping is effective when
– Gathering Information
– Exploring topics freely
• User interview with Mind Mapping
– Is Semi-structured
– Gives a high-level view of user wish
– Creates a big picture of the user wish from which
you can carve out good use cases or user stories.
• Why, Who, When are good input to user stories.

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Stickyminds.com article
“Agile Modeling with Mind Map and UML”
Search: stickyminds Kenji HIRANABE

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Let’s make software development
more collaborative, productive and FUN!
Free Evaluation of Astah from: http://astah.net/
Follow me on twitter: @hiranabe, @astah_en

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ThankThank you for your attention!you for your attention!
Requirements gathering is a critical and also slippery activity.
Customer engagement and shared visualization is essential.