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

by Jeff Patton

Spike is a term used for bits of development or research we do with the explicit goal of learning.

When acting as product owner for other stakeholders’ ideas, take on the role of a producer who helps them succeed.

You’re not helping anyone if you agree to take on everything. Aggressively trash opportunities that don’t offer much hope of creating the outcomes you hope for. Work with business stakeholders to do this so they can help make those decisions.

Build lightweight personas together to build shared understanding and empathy within the team.

An organization type with some supporting details is often called an organizational profile.

Visualize your user interface to build shared understanding of the solution.

Viable means successful for a specific business strategy, target customers, and users.

Specific business outcomes drive focus on specific users, their goals, and the activities they’ll engage in with your product.

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

one of the biggest mistakes people make, and that’s actually believing their minimal viable solution will be successful.

Research from the Standish Group published in historic “Chaos” reports explains that between 64 and 75 percent of features are rarely or never used.[

“the faster you deliver crap, the more crap you get.”

Get your solutions in front of the people who will buy or use your product. Don’t expect them to be a success at first. Iterate and improve them.

don’t confuse process with skill.

Crowds Don’t Collaborate

But all conversations are made tougher by trying to include too many people. If many of those people aren’t interested or motivated to participate, you’re doomed.

Development Cycle Planning Recipe

Break stories down progressively, and just in time.

Software is never really done.

Improvements made after release are the most valuable.