User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product

by Jeff Patton

Scope doesn’t creep; understanding grows.

In a traditional process, learning gets referred to as scope creep or bad requirements. In an Agile process, learning is the purpose.

Getting a good actionable product backlog out of an opportunity is going to take a lot of hard work; it won’t simply materialize for you. And it definitely isn’t the result of capturing a list of things people want built. It’s a deliberate process of discovery that initially focuses on learning a lot more about who, what, and why.

Prioritize specific business goals, customers, and users, and then their goals, before prioritizing features.

A really bad product backlog management strategy is to break down all the big stories so they’re small enough to fit into the next development cycle.

Break stories down progressively, and just in time.