Story Mapping in a Nutshell

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

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

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

Layers of Planning

The Problems with Flat BacklogsTraditional
Product Backlogs are flat; aprioritized 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

Product Backlogs suck at showing
the Big Picture 7

Stakeholders are interested in Releases
over SprintsSatisfy business goals Inspect and adapt 8

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

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

A Story Map Example

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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

Product Ownership is CollaborativeGood Product
Owners workwith others to iterativelyplan and refinerequirements.• 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 14

Starting a Story Map1. Form
a small group (3-7 people), with both technical and user/business advocates2. Create & prioritize personas to represent key user segments3. Prioritize key goals (e.g. business goals, user nonfunctional needs) by persona; these help you plan cohesive releases4. Brainstorm and cluster User Tasks; these form the “walking skeleton” at top5. Brainstorm Features to support these tasks most effectively; these are your User Stories 15

Validating the Story MapStory maps
let you visually Access Review Update record history recordwalk through a user’s tasksand describe them Workflow Sequenceconversationally. Provide Provide View Enter Nurse ID Patient ID history updates What would Robin do with our system? Add comment“Robin provides her nurse ID Priorityand a patient ID to accessSujatha’s record.She quickly reviews Sujatha’smedical history (optionallyadding comments),then updates the record withher latest notes.” 16

Planning Releases with Story MapsMove
User Stories below Access Review Update record history recordthe line to defer them to asubsequent 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

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

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

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 20

Exercise

Our Vision

Goal 1: Prove Our ViabilityWe
have three months to prove toour investors that we’re a viableconcern, or they will stop investing. 1 May15 Jan Go LiveNow1 Feb 1 JulyStart development Go/No Go

Goal 2: Our New Vision

Thank You!

Contact Us for Further InformationArlen
BankstonVice PresidentArlen.Bankston@lithespeed.comSanjiv AugustinePresidentSanjiv.Augustine@lithespeed.comOn 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 washttp://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. 26