newkayak12 Standing Mandates
- ALWAYS start with user goals before moving to activities and tasks — goal-first, task-second.
- ALWAYS make release decisions as explicit horizontal slices, not vague 'MVP' labels.
- NEVER let technical layer thinking dominate the backbone structure.
- NEVER proceed to task decomposition without participants validating the backbone.
When to Use / When Not to Use
Use when:
- Starting a new product or major feature and scope is not yet clear
- Reframing an existing flat backlog into a visual, narrative map
- Aligning stakeholders on scope, MVP, and release slices
- Running a facilitated planning session with a team
Not for:
- Generating a map when context is already defined (use user-story-mapping)
- Single-feature or single-story scoping
- Technical refactoring work with no user workflow
What Claude Does / What You Do
| Claude | You |
|---|---|
| Asks 5 adaptive questions to discover scope, personas, and activities | Provides context and makes judgment calls |
| Generates backbone activities from answers | Approves or modifies the backbone |
| Proposes tasks per activity with priority ordering | Confirms priorities reflect real user needs |
| Draws release slices (Walking Skeleton, R2, R3) | Validates scope feasibility with engineering |
| Flags anti-patterns (technical layers vs. user workflow) | Presents the final map to the team |
Related Skills
../user-story-mapping/SKILL.md— use this when context is already defined and you want a map produced directly../user-story/SKILL.md— tasks from the map become individual user stories../user-story-splitting/SKILL.md— large tasks need splitting before authoring stories
Application
This interactive skill asks up to 5 adaptive questions, offering 3-4 enumerated options at each step.
Use template.md for the facilitation agenda and outputs checklist.
Interaction pattern: Use one-step-at-a-time flow with numbered recommendations at decision points and quick-select options for regular questions. If the user asks for a single-shot output, skip the multi-turn facilitation.
Step 0: Gather Context (Before Questions)
Agent suggests:
Before we create your story map, let's gather context:
Product/Feature Context:
- What system or feature are you mapping?
- Product concept, PRD draft, or existing backlog
- Website copy, positioning materials, or user flows
- Existing user stories (if transitioning from flat backlog)
User Context:
- Target personas or user segments
- User research, interviews, or journey maps
- Jobs-to-be-done or problem statements
You can paste this content directly, or describe the system briefly.
Question 1: Define Scope
Agent asks: "What are you mapping? (What's the scope?)"
Offer 4 enumerated options:
- Entire product — "Full end-to-end system from discovery to completion" (Common for new products or full rewrites)
- Major feature area — "Specific workflow within a larger product (e.g., 'onboarding,' 'checkout,' 'reporting')" (Common for feature launches)
- User journey — "Specific user goal or job-to-be-done (e.g., 'hire a contractor,' 'file taxes')" (Common for JTBD-driven mapping)
- Redesign/refactor — "Existing product/feature being rebuilt or simplified" (Common for legacy system modernization)
Or describe your specific scope.
User response: [Selection or custom]
Question 2: Identify Users/Personas
Agent asks: "Who are the primary users for this map? (List personas or user segments.)"
Offer 4 enumerated options:
- Single persona — "One primary user type (e.g., 'small business owner')" (Simplifies mapping, good for MVP)
- Multiple personas, shared workflow — "Different user types, same core activities (e.g., 'buyer' and 'seller' both browse listings)" (Common for marketplaces)
- Multiple personas, different workflows — "Different user types with distinct workflows (e.g., 'admin' vs. 'end user')" (Requires separate maps or swim lanes)
- Roles within organization — "Different job functions (e.g., 'PM,' 'designer,' 'engineer')" (Common for internal tools)
Or describe your users.
Adaptation: Use personas from context provided in Step 0 (proto-personas, JTBD, etc.)
User response: [Selection or custom]
Question 3: Generate Backbone (Activities)
Agent says: "Let's build the backbone—the narrative flow of activities users perform to accomplish their goal."
Agent generates 5-8 activities based on scope (Q1) and users (Q2), arranged left-to-right in workflow order.
Before presenting backbone activities to the user: if think-tool is available, invoke it to check — "Do any of these activity names map to a technical layer (frontend, backend, API, database, deployment) rather than a user workflow step?" If yes, regenerate before surfacing.
Example (if Scope = "E-commerce checkout"):
Backbone Activities (left to right):
1. Browse Products
2. Add to Cart
3. Review Cart
4. Enter Shipping Info
5. Enter Payment Info
6. Confirm Order
7. Receive Confirmation
Agent asks: "Does this backbone capture the full workflow? Should we add, remove, or reorder activities?"
User response: [Approve, modify, or add custom activities]
Question 4: Generate User Tasks (Under Each Activity)
Agent says: "Now let's add user tasks under each activity, organized by priority (top = must-have, bottom = nice-to-have)."
Agent generates 3-5 user tasks per activity, arranged vertically by priority.
Example (for Activity 2: "Add to Cart"):
Add to Cart (Activity)
├─ Add single item to cart (must-have, walking skeleton)
├─ Adjust quantity (must-have)
├─ Add multiple items at once (should-have)
├─ Save item for later (nice-to-have)
└─ Add gift wrapping (nice-to-have)
Agent repeats for all backbone activities, showing the full map.
Agent asks: "Does this capture the key tasks? Are priorities correct (top = MVP, bottom = later releases)?"
User response: [Approve, modify, or add custom tasks]
Question 5: Identify Release Slices (Walking Skeleton + Increments)
Agent says: "Let's define release slices by drawing horizontal lines across the map."
Agent generates 3 release slices:
Release 1 (Walking Skeleton): Top-priority tasks across all activities—minimal end-to-end functionality
Release 2 (Next Increment): Second-priority tasks that enhance the core workflow
Release 3 (Polish/Expansion): Third-priority tasks (nice-to-haves, edge cases, optimizations)
Example:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Release 1 (Walking Skeleton):
- Browse products (basic list view)
- Add single item to cart
- Review cart (line items + total)
- Enter shipping info (name, address)
- Enter payment info (credit card only)
- Confirm order (basic confirmation)
- Receive email confirmation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Release 2 (Enhanced):
- Product filtering/search
- Adjust quantity in cart
- Save for later
- Multiple shipping options
- Multiple payment methods
- Order tracking link
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Release 3 (Polish):
- Product recommendations
- Guest checkout
- Gift wrapping
- Promo codes
- Advanced payment options
- Post-purchase surveys
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Agent asks: "Do these release slices make sense? Should we adjust scope or priorities?"
User response: [Approve or modify]
Output: User Story Map
After completing the flow, generate the map using the structure in references/output-template.md.