In the previous article, we explored Impact Mapping — a quick, effective technique to draft the scope for a solution and the surrounding context based on initial business goals. Today, we’ll look at the User Story Map as a tool for deeper exploration and visualization of that scope — whether as a follow-up to the Impact Map or as a standalone, battle-ready technique for building the scope from scratch.
So what is a User Story Map? The name says it all: a map of user stories. In other words, it’s a visual model that organizes user stories — basic scope units in agile development — in a specific structure. A User Story Map lays stories out across two dimensions:
Horizontally by their place in the user’s journey through the system
Vertically by their priority or value to the user
How do we build this kind of map?
1) Identify and structure your users. First, we need to define who our users are and categorize them. In enterprise systems, the most common way to categorize users is by roles. Quick disclaimer: this method isn’t limited to enterprise solutions — roles can be used in many different IT systems. In some cases, these roles manifest through permissions or other authorization mechanisms. But for simplicity’s sake, let’s stick to “roles” as our unit for separating user types here. Roles are defined by the tasks users need to perform in the system.
In consumer-facing products, roles are often not distinguishable. Take the Windows Calculator — every user interacts with it the same way. In such cases, we can rely on personas instead — a UX technique for segmenting the target audience based on human attributes (age, gender, lifestyle, etc.), depending on which attributes drive different usage scenarios. Personas and roles aren’t mutually exclusive. You can use both, but in practice, personas are typically used when access-based roles are irrelevant.
Referring back to the example from the previous article: if we review the actors (second level of the Impact Map) and whether they will interact with the system (fourth level), the following roles emerge:
Employee
Cook
Accountant (we’ll simplify the expense tracking department into this role)
With a bit of analysis, we can also assume that someone will need to administer the system (e.g., manage accounts for the above roles), so we add:
Administrator
2) The top level of the User Story Map: User Goals (a.k.a. User Activities).
For each role identified in step 1, we need to articulate their high-level goals within the system and arrange them left to right in the logical order of usage.
Let’s outline them and lay them out visually, using the draft scope we developed through Impact Mapping (and filling in some gaps along the way). I used Miro and its ready-made User Story Map template, which is easy to find online — but there are plenty of alternatives.
3) Define the user journeys. Next, for each goal, break it down into a sequence of key steps that the user needs (or is likely) to take to achieve it. These become the second level of the map — again, arranged left to right, following the logical sequence.
Don’t worry too much about perfect granularity at this point. You’ll refine things later.
4) Break each step into user stories. Now, we describe what exactly the user needs to do in the system to complete each step. This is the third level of the map, where we break steps down into smaller, actionable user stories. You can apply best practices here (like INVEST) and your own decomposition strategies. We won’t go into detail on that here. Once you’ve listed out user stories for a step, order them vertically by priority — most valuable to the user at the top, less valuable lower down.
5) Time to clean up the map. Now let’s refine it into something that feeds directly into the product backlog. That means clearly defined Epics, User stories and their prioritization.
Do the following:
Remove duplicates and regroup where necessary for easier backlog formation
Rename for clarity: make titles unambiguous, clear, and ideally unique
Adjust the story breakdown if helpful — epics are just structural containers; don’t force hierarchy where it’s not adding value
Ensure your stories follow INVEST and have practical qualities like independence, value, and manageable size (you’ll still refine them during future planning activities, so this is just a solid starting point)
6) Mark MVP or release slices. Finally, you can sketch out your release plan directly on the map — or at the very least, highlight the MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
Here’s what our finished map looks like (the divider separates the MVP from backlog items planned for later):
A few additional thoughts:
You can create one big map or separate maps for each user category.
As with the Impact Map, I built the example solo — but let me repeat the golden rule from the previous article: agile techniques work best when you run them collaboratively with your key stakeholders. When the client, knowledgeable users, and your team (UX, dev leads, PMs) all contribute to shaping the map, you drastically increase your chances of covering real user needs and prioritizing correctly.
You can build each part of the map with varying levels of depth. “Thinking” individually or as a team during a workshop is a good lightweight start. But if you want to go deeper, nothing stops you from investing more time: personas can be developed with some real empathy work, user goals and stories can come from actual research — surveys, interviews, etc. The more care your team puts into gathering accurate input, the more reliable your scope will be.
To wrap things up — how to quickly and effectively shape your solution scope using both techniques:
Run an Impact Mapping workshop with the client, user reps (if available), and key team members. Ideally, come in with a clear understanding of the project goals, but if not — use the workshop to define them. Impact Mapping helps turn goals into a draft solution scope and identify any organizational/process-side changes stakeholders will need to make to support it.
Follow up with a User Story Mapping workshop using the same group — this time, focused specifically on fleshing out the IT solution scope (most likely your team’s main area of responsibility). The User Story Map gives you a structured backlog of epics and user stories, their initial prioritization and a clear idea of where to start with the first release.