TemplateCraft conventionIntermediate

Story Map

The user's activities across the top, the supporting detail beneath, sliced into releases that each work end to end.

Definition

Story mapping arranges work by the user's journey rather than by a flat backlog, which makes it visible whether a proposed release actually delivers a usable whole.

Craft convention. True because the industry converged on it. Breaking it costs familiarity, not correctness.

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Backbone

User activities, in sequence

The big steps, left to right, in the order the user does them.

Tasks under each activity

The specific things a user does within each activity. One line each.

Slices

Each slice must be usable end to end. A release that covers only the first two activities is not a release.

Slice 1: the thinnest thing that works

One path through every activity, with everything optional removed.

Slice 2

What the first slice made obvious was missing, plus the next most valuable capability.

Later

Everything not yet justified. Keeping it visible stops it being rediscovered every planning cycle.

Checks

Does slice 1 work end to end for a real user?

Walk it through as a person, not as a feature list. If any activity has nothing in the slice, it does not work.

What we are deliberately not doing, and why

Record the rejections so the same debate is not repeated.

Each link says what the connection is, so you can tell a principle from an alternative from a thing people mix this up with.

Often used with

These usually appear in the same screen or the same decision.

Short definition

The one-paragraph version, for when that is all you need.