Story Mapping in a Nutshell

Arlen Bankston
Arlen is an established leader in the application and evolution of process management methodologies such as Lean, Six Sigma and BPM, as well as Agile software development processes such as Extreme Programming (XP) and Scrum. He is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt and Certified ScrumMaster Trainer. He also has twelve years of experience in product design, leveraging principles of information architecture, interaction design and usability to develop innovative products that meet customers’ expressed and unspoken needs. Arlen has led Agile and Lean deployment and managed process improvement projects at clients such as Capital One, T. Rowe Price, Freddie Mac, and the Armed Forces Benefits Association. Arlen’s recent work has centered on combining Lean Six Sigma process improvement methods with Agile execution to dramatically improve both the speed and quality of business results. He has also led the integration of interaction design and usability practices into Agile methodologies, presenting and training frequently at both industry conferences and to Fortune 100 clients.

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
1 2 3 4 5
Incremental Development is not
sufficiently Agile
Incremental Development calls
for a fully formed idea upfront that
is delivered in pieces
3

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

5. Layers of Planning
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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
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7

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

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

10. Story maps are an end-to-end view
Fully
featured
Overall
Goal




=
>
?
=
>
=
>
?
=
=
>
?
End-to-end complete: the puzzle pieces
Necessity,
Flexibility,
Intelligence,
Performance,
Comfort,
Luxury...
Marketable
Feature Set
The extra work is
inside the features
}
What does success
look like?
10

11. ==A Story Map Example

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12

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

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
14

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
16
Workflow Sequence
Priority
Access
record
Review
history
Provide
Nurse ID
Provide Patient ID
Update record
View
history
Add comment
Enter updates
What would Robin do
with our system?


“Robin provides her nurse ID
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.”
Story maps let you visually
walk through a user’s tasks
and describe them
conversationally.

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

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

19. Succinctly communicate
planned releases’ goals
and benefits.

Release Roadmap
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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
20

21. Exercise

22. Our Vision &%&"%$*(%
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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. 15 Jan
Now
1 Feb
Start development
1 May
Go Live
1 July
Go/No Go

24. Goal 2: Our New Vision &%&"%$*(%
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25. Thank You!

26. Contact Us for Further Information
26
Arlen Bankston Vice President [email protected]


Sanjiv Augustine President [email protected]


On the Web:
http://www.lithespeed.com
http://www.sanjivaugustine.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
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.