User Story Mapping Workshop

Purpose

Facilitate a collaborative user story mapping session with a cross-functional team — walking through persona selection, backbone creation, task mapping, and release slicing in real time. Produces a shared visual artifact that aligns the team on scope and sequencing.

Application

Turn 1: Set the Stage

Agent asks: "Let's build a story map. First, tell me:"

1. What product/feature area are we mapping?
2. Who is in the room? (Roles — PM, eng, design, etc.)
3. Do you have personas defined, or should we create one now?

Turn 2: Define the Persona & Goal

Agent asks: "Who is the primary user, and what is their overarching goal?"

**Persona:** [Name]
**Goal:** [What they're trying to accomplish end-to-end]

Turn 3: Build the Backbone

Agent asks: "Walk me through the major activities this user does, from start to finish. Think of it as chapter titles in their story."

Agent captures:

**Backbone (left → right):**
[Activity 1] → [Activity 2] → [Activity 3] → [Activity 4] → [Activity 5]

Validation: "Can someone new read these left-to-right and understand the user's journey?"

Turn 4: Add Tasks Under Each Activity

Agent asks: "For each activity, what specific tasks does the user perform? Let's go column by column."

For each activity:

• "What do they do in [Activity X]?"
• "What are the variations? (Happy path first, then alternatives)"
• "Anything else they might need to do?"

Turn 5: Draw the Walking Skeleton

Agent asks: "Now, draw a horizontal line across the map. Everything above the line is your MVP — the thinnest end-to-end experience. For each column, which ONE task is essential for the user to accomplish the goal?"

Turn 6: Define Release Slices

Agent asks: "Let's define Release 2 and 3. What tasks would make the experience meaningfully better in each release?"

Output: Complete Story Map

# Story Map: [Feature/Product]
**Persona:** [Name] | **Goal:** [Goal]
**Date:** [Today] | **Participants:** [List]

## Map

| [Activity 1] | [Activity 2] | [Activity 3] | [Activity 4] |
|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
| **R1:** [Task] | **R1:** [Task] | **R1:** [Task] | **R1:** [Task] |
| **R2:** [Task] | **R2:** [Task] | **R2:** [Task] | **R2:** [Task] |
| **R3:** [Task] | **R3:** [Task] | — | **R3:** [Task] |

## Release Definitions
- **Release 1 (MVP):** [One-line goal]
- **Release 2:** [One-line goal]
- **Release 3:** [One-line goal]

## Open Questions
- [ ] [Question surfaced during mapping]

Quality Rubric

References

Related Skills

• skills/planning/user-story-mapping/SKILL.md — The component template this workshop uses
• skills/specification/user-story/SKILL.md — Stories derived from the map
• skills/communication/workshop-facilitation/SKILL.md — General facilitation protocol

Skill type: Interactive Domain: Planning & Prioritization