User story map template
A user story map: the big activities across the top in the order a user does them, the stories under each, and lines to slice them into releases.
Opens a live board in one click. No sign-up: share the link and your team joins.
What is a user story map?
A user story map lays a backlog out as the journey a user takes rather than a list. Activities run left to right along the backbone; under each, the stories that make it possible, most important first. Slicing across the map gives each release a working path from start to finish instead of a pile of disconnected features.
What is on the board
4 frames — Backbone, Release 1, Release 2, Later — each headed in large type so it reads with the whole board on screen, and a legend with a kind of note for each thing people will write. Drag a note off the legend, or double-click the board.
- Activity
- A big thing the user does, in the order they do it.
- Step
- A smaller step within an activity.
- Story
- Something to build, small enough to finish.
- Question
- Something to find out before building.
How to run it
- Build the backboneWrite the activities a user goes through, left to right, in blue.
- Add the storiesUnder each activity, the stories that deliver it, most important at the top.
- Slice releasesMove stories into Release 1 until it is the smallest thing that works end to end.
- Keep it aliveReturn to the map each planning session; it is the backlog, not a picture of it.