Table of Contents
Foreword Martin Fowler xi
Foreword Alan Cooper xiii
Foreword Marty Cagan xvii
Preface xxi
Read This First xxix
1 The Big Picture 1
The "A" Word 1
Telling Stories, Not Writing Stories 3
Telling the Whole Story 3
Gary and the Tragedy of the Flat Backlog 5
Talk and Doc 6
Frame Your Idea 8
Describe Your Customers and Users 9
Tell Your Users' Stories 10
Explore Details and Options 14
2 Plan to Build Less 21
Mapping Helps Big Groups Build Shared Understanding 22
Mapping Helps You Spot Holes in Your Story 25
There's Always Too Much 26
Slice Out a Minimum Viable Product Release 27
Slice Out a Release Roadmap 28
Don't Prioritize Features-Prioritize Outcomes 29
This Is Magic-Really, It Is 30
Why We Argue So Much About MVP 32
The New MVP Isn't a Product at All! 34
3 Plan to team faster 37
Start by Discussing Your Opportunity 38
Validate the Problem 39
Prototype to Learn 40
Watch Out for What People Say They Want 41
Build to Learn 41
Iterate Until Viable 44
How to Do It the Wrong Way 44
Validated Learning 46
Really Minimize Your Experiments 48
Let's Recap 48
4 Plan to Finish on Time 51
Tell It to the Team 52
The Secret to Good Estimation 53
Plan to Build Piece by Piece 54
Don't Release Each Slice 56
The Other Secret to Good Estimation 56
Manage Your Budget 57
What Would da Vinci Do? 59
Iterative AND Incremental 62
Opening-, Mid-, and Endgame Strategy 63
Slice Out Your Development Strategy in a Map 64
It's All About Risk 64
Now What? 65
5 You Already Know How 67
1 Write Out Your Story a Step at a Time 67
Tasks Are What We Do 68
My Tasks Are Different Than Yours 69
I'm Just More Detail-Oriented 70
2 Organize Your Story 71
Fill in Missing Details 72
3 Explore Alternative Stories 72
Keep the Flow 74
4 Distill Your Map to Make a Backbone 75
5 Slice Out Tasks That Help You Reach a Specific Outcome 76
That's It! You've Learned All the Important Concepts 77
Do Try This at Home, or at Work 78
Its a Now Map, Not a Later Map 79
Try This for Real 81
With Software It's Harder 82
The Map Is Just the Beginning 84
6 The Real Story About Stones 89
Kent's Disruptively Simple Idea 89
Simple Isn't Easy 91
Ron Jeffries and the 3 Cs 92
1 Card 93
2 Conversation 93
3 Confirmation 94
Words and Pictures 95
That's It 96
7 Telling Better Stories 97
Connextras Cool Template 97
Template Zombies and the Snowplow 102
A Checklist of What to Really Talk About 104
Create Vacation Photos 107
It's a Lot to Worry About 108
8 It's Not All on the Card 109
Different People, Different Conversations 109
We're Gonna Need a Bigger Card 110
Radiators and Ice Boxes 113
That's Not What That Tool Is For 116
Building Shared Understanding 116
Remembering 118
Tracking 119
9 The Card Is Just the Beginning 121
Construct with a Clear Picture in Your Head 122
Build an Oral Tradition of Storytelling 123
Inspect the Results of Your Work 124
It's Not for You 126
Build to Learn 127
It's Not Always Software 128
Plan to Learn, and Learn to Plan 129
10 Bake Stories Like Cake 131
Create a Recipe 332
Breaking Down a Big Cake 133
11 Rock Breaking 137
Size Always Matters 137
Stories Are Like Rocks 139
Epics Are Big Rocks Sometimes Used to Hit People 140
Themes Organize Groups of Stories 142
Forget Those Terms and Focus on Storytelling 142
Start with Opportunities 143
Discover a Minimum Viable Solution 144
Dive into the Details of Each Story During Delivery 146
Keep Talking as You Build 148
Evaluate Each Piece 149
Evaluate with Users and Customers 150
Evaluate with Business Stakeholders 152
Release and Keep Evaluating 153
12 Rock Breakers 155
Valuable-Usable-Feasible 156
A Discovery Team Needs Lots of Others to Succeed 158
The Three Amigos 159
Product Owner as Producer 163
This Is Complicated 164
13 Start with Opportunities 167
Have Conversations About Opportunities 167
Dig Deeper, Trash It, or Think About It 168
Opportunity Shouldn't Be a Euphemism 173
Story Mapping and Opportunities 173
Be Picky 179
14 Using Discovery to Build Shared Understanding 181
Discovery Isn't About Building Software 181
Four Essential Steps to Discovery 182
1 Frame the Idea 183
2 Understand Customers and Users 183
3 Envision Your Solution 186
4 Minimize and Plan 196
Discovery Activities, Discussions, and Artifacts 199
Discovery Is for Building Shared Understanding 200
15 Using Discovery for Validated Learning 201
We're Wrong Most of the Time 201
The Bad Old Days 203
Empathize, Focus, Ideate, Prototype, Test 204
How to Mess Up a Good Thing 208
Short Validated Learning Loops 209
How Lean Startup Thinking Changes Product Design 210
Start by Guessing 211
Name Your Risky Assumptions 212
Design and Build a Small Test 212
Measure by Running Your Test with Customers and Users 214
Rethink Your Solution and Your Assumptions 215
Stories and Story Maps? 215
16 Refine, Define, and Build 217
Cards, Conversation, More Cards, More Conversations 217
Cutting and Polishing 218
Workshopping Stories 218
Sprint or Iteration Planning? 222
Crowds Don't Collaborate 225
Split and Thin 227
Use Your Story Map During Delivery 232
Use a Map to Visualize Progress 233
Use Simple Maps During Story Workshops 234
17 Stories Are Actually Like Asteroids 239
Reassembling Broken Rocks 241
Don't Overdo the Mapping 243
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff 244
18 Learn from Everything You Build 247
Review as a Team 247
Review with Others in Your Organization 251
Enough 253
Learn from Lasers 254
Learn from Release to Users 255
Outcomes on a Schedule 255
Use a Map to Evaluate Release Readiness 256
The End, or Is It? 259
Acknowledgments 261
References 265
Index 267