Discover new free story mapping tool at Craft.io and enjoy effective and easy way of user stories arrangement.

Each experienced PM is aware of the fact that an effective roadmap cannot exist without user stories. A user story map masterminds user stories into a helpful model to comprehend the usefulness of the system, distinguish gaps and exclusions in your backlog, and adequately arrange all encompassing product releases that convey the value to the clients and business with each release.

When you craft a roadmap, you simply visualize the way you build your product based on the user stories of the highest priority. That is why a clear and effective user story mapping tool will be a must for those who dream to succeed in PM. To discover one of the most effective tools for making up user stories into successful roadmaps will soon be possible with Craft.io too.

Discover User Story Mapping Tool provided by Craft

How StoryMapping is Built?

Story mapping is a top-down methodology of assembling the requirements and is formed as a tree hierarchy. Story mapping begins from an all-encompassing vision. A dream product is accomplished using objectives. Objectives are achieved through certain activities. Also, to finish an activity, the users need to run certain errands. Furthermore, these errands can be changed into client stories for the top product development with the help of effective story mapping software.

Story mapping is a great visual way of building your product backlog effectively. If you wanna learn to do that better, you will definitely need some user story mapping software. For your reference, you may have a look at a sample branch of storymapping from the real projects.

Let’s, for example, make an online application’s goal PM (workspaces)

In real life your storymapping may look like this one right below:

However, a sample branch of story map produced with the help of free story mapping software tool is more likely to look like this:

Story Mapping Pros

Product backlog visual presentation is available to every one of the partners on the same page, as far as the scope and complexity are concerned. A view of a project size is additionally given.

• Requirements caught in a physical organization encourages coordinated effort and constructs shared comprehension.
• As far as inception is typically a time boxed movement, the story mapping approach serves to plunge profoundly into and concentrate on critical components of the application. Checking ‘good to have’ highlights as ‘out of view’ amid profound plunge sessions, helps the group to save their time.
• Oddly enough, but having all stories gathered on the blackboard enables the group to perform relative estimation of the stories extremely rapidly.
• The structure of the story map assists with prioritization and offers simple backlog slicing into releases and tailors out MVP (minimum viable product). Slicing should be possible both horizontally and vertically, for example, few components or more with MVP in every feature.
• Story map can be adjusted to agile story mapping software like Craft. io.

At some point we may require more data to be caught with story map: ‘good to have’ stories, follow up inquiries, alternative methodologies and others. This includes improving your story map with more various data. It is easy when you make your story map physically visual on the wall, floor or a board because you can mark various components with different colours to represent the variety of levels. It is visually effective to put the wire frames next to the relevant story map areas. Stickers like dots are used to mark specific data like:

• scope features that are extremely important for the shared understanding,
• search of alternatives to reach out the user experience or low-cost solutions, etc.

Notes, assumptions, questions or follow-ups may be marked with the small stickers and so on. But how can you do the same virtually? Of course, effective story mapping tool will be in handy.

Roadmapping Challenge Tips

No matter how you do your story map, there are certain challenges you may come across and, thus, will need some tips to overcome them. These are useful tips on how to avoid the hardships and run your physical story mapping successfully.

Since making a map of stories is quite a discovering phase of your work for the product requirements, to succeed, you simply should follow certain algorithm of capturing everything from A to Z, including alternatives, to avoid the time waste and long-running debates with your development team members. So, here we go:

1. You should make priorities of your deep dives, so that not to waste time on less relevant topics and to abstain from investing energy in less significant points. Organize profound jumps here and there.

2. Clean up and improve your markers more often before it becomes huge and turns out to be extremely hard to oversee. Keep a wide space on your wall empty to add something any time.

3. While working with any marker with stickies, try to clean carefully up those that you do not need to get rid of folds.  They may be present on your story mapping spot for long activity duration and interfere with it. Make sure there are no folds readable on photos too.

Conclusion

Effective story mapping is a viable starting point in organization of your backlog and the product roadmap in an outwardly organized manner. It is a discovery tool that helps to make a product understandable, build its common comprehension, distinguish crevices the gaps in backlog and catch the inter-dependencies, better perform the relative estimation. Further, it can likewise help with the backlog slicing into the timely releases and other arrangement activities.

To step up to a higher level in digital product management, you are welcome to discover online story mapping tools that are easy to use and extremely effective for your business. Do not forget to include them in your everyday tool list and use on the regular basis. And fortunately for you guys, this storymapping tool is included in our resourceful business application list published here.

Feel free to comment and give feedback about this featured story mapping tool and digital product management as whole and likewise, you can visit Craft.io for more!