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User Story Mapping

TTool · User Story Mapping

By , Editor · · What’s Next

The backlog's two hundred items long. Nobody can tell which release delivers a complete experience. Features keep shipping that work in isolation but make no sense together.

User Story Mapping is Jeff Patton's visual technique for laying out a product backlog as a user journey. You arrange activities along a horizontal backbone, then stack the detail beneath each one — higher means more important — so the team sees how pieces relate to real experience rather than sitting in a flat list.

A story map grid with a horizontal backbone of five activity columns - sign up, onboard, first action, repeat, invite - and cards stacked beneath each, split by two horizontal divider lines marked release 1 and release 2.
Method visual — User Story Mapping
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