#SGZA 2015: Story Mapping Workshop

I recently attended the regional Scrum Gathering for 2015 in Johannesburg. This is a post in a series on the talks that I attended. All posts are based on the sketch-notes that I took in the sessions.

First, watch this video about making toast.

I really enjoyed the workshop on story mapping. Sadly, I still feel that although I ‘get it’ at a theoretical level, I still cannot see easy ways to use it in practice. It seems harder to create a map than it looks!

Suggested approach to creating your story map:

1. Create a vision (e.g. using the Business Model Canvas)
2. Write up the process or map (as described in the video). Think about the various user roles.
3. Explore the map with questions. “What if…?” “What about…”?
4. Group your activities to form a backbone. Focus on breadth and not depth. Consider the goals for your user personas.
5. Slice your activities into outcomes based on your persona goals.
6. Build your development strategy (order in which you will release)

Other notes

• On average, you will usually identify about 15 user roles. These can usually be combined into about three user personas.
• Unless you are working with a mature product in a stable environment, your road-map should be about delivering goals and not features.
• When building your development strategy, it usually makes sense to build your high value, high risk items first.

Links

• DrawToast.com (resources)
• Business Model Canvas (tool)
• Business Model Canvas template (from DrawToast.com)
• Tool for creating User Personas (among other things)

More on Story Mapping

• Story Mapping Video
• Some more facilitation tips.
• Simple overview
• Some more detail (plus more on vertical slices)

Have you tried story-mapping? Was is successful? What worked for you? What did you struggle with?