User story mapping - The Secret to Keeping Big Projects on Track

We've used the Scrum methodology at Crystalloids since our foundation in 2011. For us, as for most software developers and product managers, it's the most effective way to deliver working software on time, meet user needs, and satisfy our stakeholders.

Over the years, as our company has grown and we began taking on larger clients and more complex projects, we started encountering challenges that come with scale. With larger projects involving hundreds of user stories and spanning long periods, it became clear that our Scrum teams sometimes lost sight of the overall project structure.

To solve this, our CEO introduced a new element to our Scrum process: the user story map. This simple yet powerful addition made a big difference for everyone involved—developers, Scrum masters, product owners, product managers, and, most importantly, our software development stakeholders.

 What is a User Story Map?

A user story map visually represents the journey users take when interacting with the end product. It includes the activities and tasks they undertake, giving insight into how the system works from the user’s perspective. This journey map is crucial for aligning user needs with product development goals.

Creating this map is the first step when starting a project, guiding the Agile team in building the product backlog and supporting agile development throughout each sprint. The map helps ensure everyone has a clear view of the overall user experience and how individual tasks contribute to the final product.

Gojko Adzic and David Evans offer a great definition in their book  Fifty Quick Ideas to Improve Your User Stories:

"User story maps connect software deliverables to customer journeys and business workflows, showing how individual stories contribute to the bigger picture and providing a great visual representation of release plans."

The concept of user story mapping was pioneered by Jeff Patton, who observed that traditional product backlogs, which arrange user stories in the order they will be built, lack context. He argued that a backlog without context is like "context-free mulch" and that a team needs context to understand what the whole system does.

By creating a story map as a team—not just leaving it up to the product owner—everyone stays aligned from the start of agile development through to each sprint and ongoing delivery. It ensures that the team can see how every part fits into the bigger picture, fostering a shared understanding.

How is a User Story Map Structured?

A story map organizes user activities along the horizontal axis in the sequence they occur over time. Vertically, it shows the stories arranged by their value and priority.

At the top of the map is the "backbone" of the user story map, representing the core activities a user accomplishes while using the product. These activities are the epics of the story map. For instance, if you’re developing a system for purchasing products, the backbone might include activities like "Browsing Products," "Adding to Cart," and "Completing Checkout."

The development team uses the user story map to align their efforts towards building a new product, ensuring that all user needs are met throughout the process.

Backlog vs. Story Map

Unlike a traditional vertical backlog, a user story map also has a horizontal axis that captures the sequence of activities over time. This more complete view of the entire system offers significant benefits for prioritizing work, assigning story points, and understanding the use story within the broader context.

Before we began using user story maps, we simply added stories to an ever-growing backlog, ordered by customer value. While this worked for smaller projects, the backlog quickly became overwhelming and disorganized as it grew—lacking any narrative or structure to explain what the customer was trying to achieve.

A "flat" product backlog doesn’t capture the customer journey; it’s just a list of features. In contrast, a user story map tells the whole story of the product, including how features relate to one another and contribute to the overall experience. By incorporating personas into the user story map, we can better align development with real customer requirements.

Most team members find that using a story map in combination with a traditional backlog works best. The map, often displayed on a big wall in the office, helps keep everyone aligned on the big picture, while the backlog in a tool like Jira helps manage individual tasks.

You might be wondering: Is it really necessary for the entire Scrum team to focus on understanding business processes? Doesn’t adding a user story map just complicate the Scrum process and take more time? The truth is, yes, it adds another step—but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.

A user story map is a collaborative tool that helps guide an Agile team in creating a well-structured product backlog. It captures the customer journey, including the activities and tasks involved, and brings clarity to the entire development process. The user story map helps in defining the minimum viable product (MVP) and provides a clear roadmap for sprints and releases. By building the story map as a team, everyone stays aligned, from the initial planning stages through to the ongoing release of new features. Each user story in agile development becomes more meaningful and context-driven.

Want to learn more about Scrum? Check out our blog on five tips for creating the best epics and user stories.