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

by Jeff Patton

With a grateful nod to Ben Horowitz’s Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager, here’s a glimpse into some of the important differences between strong product teams and weak teams: Good teams have a compelling product vision that they pursue with a missionary-like passion. Bad teams are mercenaries. Good teams get their inspiration and product ideas from their scorecard KPIs, from observing customers struggle, from analyzing the data customers generate from using their product, and from constantly seeking to apply new technology to solve real problems. Bad teams gather requirements from sales and customers. Good teams understand who their key stakeholders are, they understand the constraints that these stakeholders operate in, and they are committed to inventing solutions that not only work for users and customers, but also work within the constraints of the business. Bad teams gather requirements from stakeholders. Good teams are skilled in the many techniques to rapidly try out product ideas to determine which ones are truly worth building. Bad teams hold meetings to generate prioritized roadmaps. Good teams love to have brainstorming discussions with smart thought leaders from across the company. Bad teams get offended when someone outside their team dares to suggest they do something. Good teams have product, design, and engineering sit side-by-side, and embrace the give and take between the functionality, the user experience, and the enabling technology. Bad teams si...