What I understand

Mapping user stories break down the user-flows with activities, which provides risk and dependency understanding with user value for prioritizing the excellent user experience.

Why we need

User first approach and Prioritize right

These user stories mapping to user flows approach helps us look at the product from the user's perspective, forcing you to put aside bias for "nice-to-have" features and focus on what provides the most value for the user. Visualize user stories necessary to deliver a product experience incrementally from absolute necessary (MVP) to a "nice to have" story. This incremental update helps to organize the work into planned releases.

Manage user stories well-sized delivers new value early and often

The right prioritization of user stories for the releases helps to break down larger stories or epics. Large user stories, which are epics, need to break into smaller user stories and prioritize the incremental user value and experience. When you well-sized stories iterate over releases with immediate value to the user, provide better user feedback, and quickly learn what the user requires.

Who is involved

User story mapping allows participants to share their perspective, efforts, and estimation. This team exercise helps to expose risks and dependencies in the initial thought process. User story mapping is a team exercise to build team consensus.

Product manager provides the product understanding needed to make strategic product decisions, resulting from market analysis and competitive conditions. Product managers are the responsible collaboration from/to the stakeholders on the product fit for the organization and involve the teams in the product development's operations.

Product owner, is responsible for the product execution accountable for prioritizing user stories for the releases with incremental user value with a holistic product roadmap in mind.

Customer support / Sales provide both prospective and existing users experiences and expectations to the user story mapping help to prioritize the work

Domain experts identify the user flows and analyze the gaps from the business perspective

Developers / Testers (QA) implements the user stories that help perspective on the efforts to break down the user stories and prioritization.

When is the right time?

Creating a user story mapping is the process throughout the product/project life than a one-time activity; it's the blueprint of your feature release.

User story mapping helps to prioritize the flat product backlog. With a product's vision while keeping the user value as a priority. User story mapping is versatile, which can apply in different phases for incremental value.

Ok then, Let's do

Map the user values

We need to frame the exercise around a common goal. Mapping user values provide product vision or the purpose of a specific feature you're mapping out.

What does our product do? What problem are you trying to solve? What benefits will each of them get from what you're creating? How will giving users this add value to the bottom line? Map the user flows to user values

User flows are the steps users take in feature :

e.g., Sign up for an account or Search for vacation homes by city/price/location/availability

Domain experts / SME to walk through the feature step-by-step, taking your customer from the start to end of their journey.

Map user flows to user activities

In user story mapping, The steps are working towards a standard user value are user activities.

Eg: "Click sign up", "enter personal information", "get confirmation email", and "open profile". All these steps are part of the activity of "Account sign up."

In the above-listed activities, the user steps to make up your user flows.

Map user flows to epics

The steps in one user flow are most likely too big to be tackled in one sprint. These forms, epics, and phases provide an opportunity to think about UI elements, data elements in detail. Mapping the epics delivers the metrics to measure the value of the product/project experience at the user flow level.

Map releases to user flow

User flow tells the story of how your users move through your product. You can prioritize the importance of user stories by moving the priority level. Use the map as an opportunity to discuss flows and organization in a way that works best for you.

Map user stories to Releases

As you move through your map, an iteration emerges to form into release. Each slice should be a minimum viable product release, creating value across each user and activity. Mapping user stories to releases provides certainty of the Product release and user value delivery.

User story mapping changes user stories list in the backlog to structured implementation tasks for the product/project.