The document discusses story mapping as a method to enhance agile product development and planning, emphasizing the importance of iterative development over flat backlogs. It outlines the main principles of collaboration in creating story maps, forming a cohesive view of user goals, and planning releases effectively. Additionally, it emphasizes the necessity of involving users and maintaining a clear vision to ensure successful product outcomes.

1. Story Mapping in a Nutshell

2. Meet the Presenter
Arlen Bankston
• Co-Founder of LitheSpeed, LLC
• User experience & product
development background
• 11 years of Agile experience
• Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt
• Lately 40% training, 20% each of
coaching, product development &
management
2

3. Principle – Iteration + Flow
Incremental Development is not
sufficiently Agile
Incremental Development calls
for a fully formed idea upfront that
is delivered in pieces
1 2 3 4 5
3

4. Principle – Iteration + Flow
Iterative Development is Agile
Iterating allows you to move from
vague idea to realization.
1 2 3 4 5
4

5. Layers of Planning

6. The Problems with Flat Backlogs
Traditional Product Backlogs are flat; a
prioritized list.
Great for answering “what do we do next?”
Not so great for:
• Collaborative building & inspection
• Seeing how everything fits together
• Balancing a view of user-valued features with
the need for iteration-size stories
• Planning coherent value-based releases
6

7. Product Backlogs suck at showing the Big Picture
7

8. Stakeholders are interested in Releases over Sprints
Satisfy business
goals
Inspect and
adapt
8

9. A Broader View – Story Maps
User Goals Access Review Update Medical
record
Epics history record Reference
• Minimize the time
needed to access Workflow Sequence
patient records
• Minimize the customer Provide Provide View Enter
inputs necessary to Nurse ID Patient ID history updates
access patient records
Release
Search Add Notify of Search
Boundary records comment updates reference
Priority
Persona
Night Nurse
Robin Sort Search Reference
Robin leaves for work at records history validation
6pm, after sleeping
during the day. She works
a 7pm-7am shift in Labor Add
& Delivery, caring for Filter Features &
records comment
prospective mothers and
their babies. Complex
User Stories
computer apps make
Robin grumpy.
9

10. Story maps are an end-to-end view
End-to-end complete: the puzzle pieces
Overall
Goal
What does success
look like?
}
Necessity, Marketable
Flexibility, Feature Set
Intelligence,
Performance,
Comfort,
Luxury...
Fully The extra work is
featured inside the features
10

11. A Story Map Example

12. 12

13. How Story Maps fit into Agile Planning
Business Vision
Product Vision or
Unique Value Prop.
Product / Project
Story Map with
Business Goals: Releases
Outcome
Product Backlog
Product Goals:
Output
Marketable
Feature Sets
User Stories
Thanks to Xebia for this visualization. 13

14. Product Ownership is Collaborative
Good Product Owners work
with others to iteratively
plan and refine
requirements.
• Quality Analysts create testable
examples that exercise
boundary and special case
scenarios
• Business Analysts elicit and
describe user needs
• Developers provide available
execution paths and describe
their respective costs
• User Experience experts
research and design for user
needs, and aid in gathering
product feedback
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15. Starting a Story Map
1. Form a small group (3-7 people), with both
technical and user/business advocates
2. Create & prioritize personas to represent key
user segments
3. Prioritize key goals (e.g. business goals, user
nonfunctional needs) by persona; these help
you plan cohesive releases
4. Brainstorm and cluster User Tasks; these form
the “walking skeleton” at top
5. Brainstorm Features to support these tasks
most effectively; these are your User Stories
15

16. Validating the Story Map
Story maps let you visually Access Review Update
record history record
walk through a user’s tasks
and describe them Workflow Sequence
conversationally. Provide Provide View Enter
Nurse ID Patient ID history updates
What would Robin do
with our system? Add
comment
“Robin provides her nurse ID Priority
and a patient ID to access
Sujatha’s record.
She quickly reviews Sujatha’s
medical history (optionally
adding comments),
then updates the record with
her latest notes.”
16

17. Planning Releases with Story Maps
Move User Stories below Access Review Update
record history record
the line to defer them to a
subsequent Release. Workflow Sequence
Provide Provide View Enter
• Choose coherent Nurse ID Patient ID history updates
groups of features
that consider the RELEASE 1
Search Add Notify of
span of business records comment updates
functionality and user Priority
activities RELEASE 2 Sort Search Reference
records history validation
• Support all necessary
activities with the first Filter
release records
• Improve activity
support with
subsequent releases
17

18. Planning Releases with Story Maps
Key Major
Epic 1 Epic 2
Activity Component
Release 1:
Guided Story A1 B1 D1
Retrospective
Release 2: A2 C1
C2
Custom retros C3
Release 3: A3 B2 D1
Progress Tracking D2
Release 4:
B3
???
18

19. Release Roadmap
Succinctly communicate
planned releases’ goals
and benefits.
•
•
•
19

20. Story Mapping Tips
• Start with what you know (stories, or
goals, or users), and make the rest fit
• Don’t worry about story size at first;
clustering & splitting later is faster
• Make releases smaller; independently
useful features can be released alone
• Involve real users; they can help keep
your map and priorities grounded
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21. Exercise

22. Our Vision

23. Goal 1: Prove Our Viability
We have three months to prove to
our investors that we’re a viable
concern, or they will stop investing.
1 May
15 Jan
Go Live
Now
1 Feb 1 July
Start development
Go/No Go

24. Goal 2: Our New Vision

25. Thank You!

26. Contact Us for Further Information
Arlen Bankston
Vice President
Arlen.Bankston@lithespeed.com
Sanjiv Augustine
President
Sanjiv.Augustine@lithespeed.com
On the Web:
http://www.lithespeed.com I only wish I had read this book when I started my career in
software product management, or even better yet, when I was
http://www.sanjivaugustine.com given my first project to manage. In addition to providing an
excellent handbook for managing with agile software
development methodologies, Managing Agile Projects offers a
guide to more effective project management in many business
settings.
John P. Barnes, former Vice President of Product Management at
Emergis, Inc.
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