User Story Mapping - the Way to shared Understanding for better Quality and more Success in Projects
Presenter: Sabine Wojcieszak, Agile & DevOps Enabler, getNext IT
It is very well known that the success of IT projects is based on a “good requirements engineering”. To collect “good requirements” we need a shared understanding of the whole project – and understanding we have all committed on. In daily business we find ourselves in situations where we all believe, that all stakeholders of the projects have the same idea in mind – because it seems to be obvious. But then later in the project we find out, that we all had different variations of the idea in mind. Sometimes it becomes hard to turn the wheel in the right direction or it becomes extremely expensive or – worst case – the project fails.
To avoid this and to set up a good foundation for the requirements engineering User Story Mapping can be used. It helps to create a shared understanding. In the User Story Mapping process teams are working on a map of user tasks aligned on a timeline to be read like a story told from the perspective/s of the user/s. The map contains a backbone and different iterations of the product / project. The User Story Map helps to plan iterations of a product or to improve from an actual state to a future state. Besides the shared understanding, it is also the basis for discussions about eventual risks and how to manage them. It is extremely helpful for interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary teams and can also be used in the work with customers.
In this workshop you explore the idea of User Story Mapping in small teams working on imaginary projects. After the workshop you will have a basic understanding offor how to use User Story Mapping. With some further practice you should be able to use it for your daily work.
This workshop is available without any pre-knowledge. As it aims at interdisciplinary teams, it is not only meant for people from IT but also from all other business units.
Sabine Wojcieszak is an enthusiastic Agile & DevOps Enabler at getNext IT, a German consultancy. As a coach she helps teams and organisations to improve their teamwork and their communication. She enables people to work in an agile way or to adopt the DevOps mentality and focuses on the human part of such changes. Sabine is a well-known speaker at international tech conferences, author of several articles and one of the DevOpsDays Kiel organisers. She also lectures on topics of APM, DevOps and Open Source at the University of Applied Science in Kiel.
