Module 3 · Agile Business Analysis
Story mapping
Lay out a product's whole user journey as a story map, find the walking skeleton, and slice releases that each deliver something usable end to end.
About 20 minutes
The problem
The kiosk app's backlog is a flat list, ordered by priority. Look at the top 20 items and you'll find five ways to log in and no way to pay. Each item made sense on its own, but nobody could see the whole journey, so the "top priorities" didn't add up to anything a kiosk owner could actually use.
A flat backlog hides gaps. A story map shows the user's whole journey left to right, with the detail underneath, so you can see at a glance whether the first release lets someone do the job from start to finish.
The concept
The parts of a story map
- The backbone: the big steps a user goes through, left to right, in the order they happen. For a kiosk owner: Sign up → Find products → Build an order → Pay → Track delivery → Reorder.
- The stories: under each step, the user stories that support it, most essential at the top.
- Release slices: horizontal lines across the map. Everything above the first line is the first release.
The walking skeleton
The thinnest possible version of the whole journey: the one most basic story under every step of the backbone. It's ugly, but someone can use it from start to finish. Building it first proves the journey works and gives you something real to test with users.
Slice by outcome, not by component
A good first slice lets a real user complete the job. A bad slice is "all of sign-up, perfectly", which leaves nobody able to order. Slicing the map horizontally, across every step, is what keeps each release usable.
Example
Part of the kiosk app's story map, with the first two slices:
| Sign up | Find products | Build an order | Pay | Track delivery | Reorder |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Register with phone number | List products by category | Add and remove items | Pay on delivery | Order status list | Reorder last basket |
| — walking skeleton — | |||||
| Verify phone by SMS | Show current price | Minimum order value rule | Pay by transfer | Delivery day reminder | Favourite products |
| Log in with PIN | Search products | Delivery day selection | Confirm transfer payments | Cancel before dispatch | |
| — pilot release — | |||||
| Language options | Promotions banner | Save basket for later | Pay by card | Delivery photo proof |
Above the first line, a kiosk owner can register, see products, order, pay on delivery, see the order's status and reorder: a complete, if basic, journey. The pilot slice adds what makes it practical. Everything below the second line can wait for feedback from the pilot.
Walkthrough
- List the backbone of the kiosk owner's journey on sticky notes or in a spreadsheet, left to right.
- Use
backlog.csvto place each story under its step. (Theepiccolumn is a good starting point: most epics match one backbone step.) - Draw the walking skeleton line: one story per step, the most basic.
- Draw the pilot release line. Check every step has enough above the line for a real kiosk to use it.
- Compare your map with the team's original plan: how many MVP stories did it contain (the first task below)?
Practice
Practice
Agile data: how many stories were in the MVP release when the team started (created before sprint 1 began on 2 March 2026)?
Task
10 minWrite a story map for a different product: a school fees payment app for parents. First write the backbone on one line (at least five steps separated by →). Then, for each step, write a line in the form Step: walking-skeleton story | later story, with one essential story and one that can wait.
Your work is checked for
- A backbone with at least five steps separated by → (or ->)
- At least five step lines in the form Step: story | story
- Includes a payment step
Check your understanding
Answer every question to check.