stanislavnianko Journey Mapping
Part of the discovery-phase skill pack ·
synthesisgroup · readspersonas.md(runpersonasfirst if missing) andthemes.md(frominsight-synthesis).
Turns a persona's lived experience into a stage-by-stage map that surfaces where pain concentrates and where opportunity moments hide. Each pain point is evidence-anchored; each opportunity moment links back to the opportunity-tree.md so journey work doesn't drift from prioritized outcomes.
Step 1 — Read context + upstream artifacts
Read discovery-context.md, personas.md, themes.md. If personas.md is missing, recommend running personas first — journeys without a named persona collapse to "the average user" and become useless. Don't block: the BA may proceed with [ASSUMED-persona] for a quick draft, but flag low confidence.
If interview-notes/ exists, scan for chronological narrative — interviews where users walk through "and then I did…" are gold for journey reconstruction. If only support-data-analysis.md is available, the journey will be partial (post-purchase / support phase only).
Step 2 — Set scope
Decide three things up-front; cram all three into one journey and the map becomes unreadable:
- Which persona — pick exactly one. If you need journeys for two personas, run this skill twice.
- Which journey — onboarding, repeat-purchase, support-resolution, evaluation, churn-recovery, etc. Name it precisely.
- Current-state or future-state — current-state maps pain; future-state maps the proposed redesign. Default to current-state unless a feature-scoping decision depends on the future view.
State all three at the top of the artifact. They're constraints — if mid-skill you find yourself blending personas, stop and re-scope.
Step 3 — Stages (3-7)
High-level phases the persona moves through. Examples by journey type:
| Journey | Typical stages |
|---|---|
| Onboarding | Discover → Sign up → First use → Habit formation |
| Repeat-purchase (B2C) | Trigger → Browse → Decide → Purchase → Receive → Use → Repurchase |
| Support resolution | Hit problem → Self-serve attempt → Contact support → Wait → Resolve |
| Enterprise evaluation | Awareness → Shortlist → Pilot → Internal sell → Procurement → Rollout |
3 stages = too coarse, 7+ = decompose further or split into two journeys.
Step 4 — For each stage, fill the row
| Column | What goes here | Evidence required? |
|---|---|---|
| Stage | Phase name | — |
| Actions | What the persona literally does (verbs) | Light |
| Touchpoints | Channels / tools / people involved | Light |
| Thinking / Goal | What they're trying to accomplish in this stage | Strong |
| Pain points | What's broken — friction, confusion, fail | Required — cite [I-N], [support-id], [SME-name] |
| Emotion (1-5) | 1=frustrated, 3=neutral, 5=delighted | Strong |
| Opportunity moments | Where the product could intervene | Link to opportunity-tree.md |
If a row has no pain points but the persona is unhappy, the synthesis is wrong — either the emotion is overstated or you missed a pain. Loop back to evidence.
Step 5 — Draw the emotion line
A simple sparkline across stages: 2 → 1 → 1 → 3 → 4. The dips identify where the product's intervention has the highest leverage. If the line is flat, either the journey is uniformly OK (rare — and your scope is probably wrong) or you didn't probe deep enough.
Step 6 — Identify intervention moments (top 3)
From the rows, pick the top 3 opportunity moments — places where a redesign would shift the emotion line most. Each must:
- Be tied to a specific stage and pain point
- Reference an opportunity in
opportunity-tree.md(or flag as a new opportunity to add) - Note what evidence makes this stage high-leverage (e.g., "8 of 12 interviews mentioned drop-off here")
These three moments become inputs to feature-scoping and mvp-definition.
Step 7 — Pressure test (4 checks)
| Test | Question | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Persona-fit | Does each stage make sense for the named persona? Or did you slide into "average user"? | Re-anchor on the persona's role/context |
| Evidence per pain | Every pain point has a citation? | Drop unsupported pains or escalate to "open question" |
| Emotion grounded | Is the emotion score derived from a quote, not a guess? | Replace guesses with quotes or [ASSUMED] |
| Opportunity link | Top-3 moments link to opportunity-tree.md? |
Add to opportunity tree or revise — journeys that don't feed downstream are decoration |
Step 8 — Write artifact
Output: ./discovery/journey-map.md — see ./template.md.
Append to _log.md: [journey-mapping | YYYY-MM-DD] persona: <label>; journey_type: <onboarding|...>; state: <current|future>; stages: <N>; top_pain_count: <K>.
Anti-patterns
- Feature-led journey. "User clicks button → user sees screen" is a UX flow, not a journey. Lead from the persona's intent, not the product's UI.
- Generic personas, generic journey. Without a sharp persona, every stage becomes vague.
- Missing emotion line. Pure-cognitive journeys hide where redesign actually matters.
- Future-state cosplay. Future-state maps without an evidence-backed current-state are wishful thinking.
- One mega-journey covering 12 stages. Split. Always split.
- Journey that doesn't feed
opportunity-tree.md. Journey work that doesn't change downstream decisions is decoration.