If I told you I was going to trek off into the Texas Hill country in search of an undiscovered cold spring (a rarity, these days!), in the middle of the summer heat, with no digital or paper map, you would rightfully tell me that I was a mad man with a death wish. And yet this is how many digital product teams work today – building features and products with no real map of where they are going, or how they will get there.
The Current State
Due to digital agile product management being a relatively new field, there are challenges when it comes to translating “we need to release an update to the app that lets our shoppers redeem digital offers” into a successful release that users use and love and that solves a business goal.
The first challenge is when product managers aren’t given enough time to think through the full user journey — leading to major gaps in design and development and an end product that is not easy to iterate on.
The second challenge is when there is misalignment among internal teams (designers, developers, business, testers, etc.). This can happen when requirements are misunderstood, especially when written documents are used as stand-ins for human-to-human conversation.
The Solution
I’m happy to say that the solution (at least the one we use here at H-E-B to great effect) is embarrassingly simple: talk with each other. Yep, conversations. Ok, there is a tiny bit more to it, but not much.
The process is called “User Story Mapping” (coined by Jeff Patton) and it’s really simple. It’s the process of getting in front of a physical or digital whiteboard with some key stakeholders and discussing the user’s narrative journey through your product/feature. You discuss who your users are, what tasks (in narrative order) they want to accomplish within your product or feature, and then slice out your iterative release strategy by grounding each release in a goal that the release is designed to accomplish. This leads to creating a release strategy that solves user and business goals up front and follows a clear structure that enables you to release more functionality over time.
Outcomes
The outcomes are also simple, but significant. It works for your internal teams because they feel (maybe for the first time ever) highly informed and involved; it works for your customers because they are getting features that solve their very real needs; and it works for the business because successful launches bring in more value for the company. Wins all around.
It all starts with a conversation — Happy mapping!
