1.
© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
story mapping
© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
How to create compelling user stories?
– Siddhartha Banerjee

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
What is a user story?
A User Story is a brief description of a need or
goal told from the perspective of the person with
the need or goal.
User stories are often written on index cards or sticky notes, and arranged
on walls or tables to facilitate planning and discussion. As such, they
strongly shift the focus from writing about features to discussing them. In
fact, these discussions are more important than whatever text is written.

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
The formula
As a <type of user>, I want <some goal>
so that <some reason>.

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Examples
As a consultant, I want to manage my email so that
I can keep up with clients, colleagues, and friends.
As a computer user, I want to backup my entire
hard drive so that I will not lose any files.
As a VP Marketing, I want to select a holiday season
to be used when reviewing the performance of past
advertising campaigns so that I can identify
profitable ones.

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
What is the big Epic User Story?
Workshop #1 (20 min)
Team members share and discuss stories.
Each Team selects a “Big” User Story.
A User Story to be clear, accurate and emotional
needs to be in terms a Person – the User.

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
But these stories are way too “big” of stories to
begin designing and building.
Epic stories
As a computer user, I
want to backup my entire
hard drive so that I will
not lose any files.

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Because an epic is generally too large and bit
ambiguous, it should be split into multiple smaller
user stories before it is worked on.
Small stories

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Examples Epic Story
As a computer user, I
want to backup my entire
hard drive so that I will
not lose any files.
Small Stories
As you can see the epic story could be split into dozens
(or possibly hundreds), of small stories.
As a user, I can
specify files or folders to
backup based on file size,
date created and date
modified.
As a user, I can indicate
folders not to backup so that
my backup drive isn't filled up
with things I don't need saved.
As a user, I want to get
hints when my drive is
90% full so that I can delete
unwanted files.

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Next up…
We need User Personas before we create these
Small Stories

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
User Persona
Name: Samuel
Gender: Male
Age: 40
Location: Upper East Side, NYC
Occupation: Sr. Executive
Income: $70,000
Computing experience: Fine, mobile app savvy
Web behavior patterns: Music, Travel, Photography
sites and Social networks
Attitude: Ready to try new things, even though he’s not
a geek
Values: He believes that technology empowers his life
and simplicity is the best way to tackle a complicated
subject
Fears: He will not be able to use a tech product at its
full capacity. Also he’s not comfortable with analytics
and numbers
Need: A service that will help him backup his data without
him being worried about the nitty-gritty details.
Goal: Helping a non-techie to backup his data, automatically
and manually, sans a complicated process
DEMOGRAPHICS
PSYCHOGRAPHICS
NEED/GOAL

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Develop a Primary and a Secondary Persona using
the matrix
Workshop #2 (50 min)

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
With a Big (Epic) User Story and Personas of Users,
the big story can now be broken down into smaller
stories.
Next up…
Each smaller User Story should account for a task
or action that would advance the User toward
goal(s).

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Examples
As a user, I can
specify files or folders to
backup based on file size,
date created and date
modified.
As a user, I can indicate
folders not to backup so that
my backup drive isn't filled up
with things I don't need saved.
As a user, I want to get
hints when my drive is
90% full so that I can delete
unwanted files.

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Develop user stories that can be User tasks or
actions advancing or supporting the bigger story
Workshop #3 (40 min)
Each user story is written on a separate Post-It.
Write as many as you can.
Once user stories have been written and discussed,
they can be arranged in the order that the task or
action would take place in time.

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Story Mapping
Story Mapping consists of the user stories being
arranged in a grid format

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Examples

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Examples

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Arrange the user tasks or activities in a grid format
Workshop #4 (15 min)
Team discussions about the stories are as
important as the arrangement of stories
Take clear photos of Story Maps
This gives a hi-level structure and possibly you
could propose what are you building.

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Remember
User Stories are not User Journeys.

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© 2015 Siddhartha Banerjee
Thanks!