1. © 2012 Redpoint Technologies.
All rights reserved.
Project Inceptions with
Personas and Story Maps
Southeast WI IIBA Chapter
Dave Neuman, Principal, Redpoint Technologies
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Confidential information.

2. Our Challenge Today
Launch a new product in 6 months or less
• Name:
­ TestNation!
• Product:
­ Awesome electronic test management and test taking platform for high schools
• Market:
­ Over 16M students and over 1M teachers in about 36K secondary schools
• Goals:
1. Save 1 hour of time per test for teachers in manual test creation, grading, and reporting
• 1hr x 5 tests x 1M teachers = 5M hrs x $40/hr = $200M in savings that can be spent
elsewhere
• 1hr x 5 tests x 1M teachers = 5M hrs of additional teaching of students
2. Improve quality and reliability of testing results (limit cheating and favoritism)
2

3. Our Challenge Today
Launch a new product in 6 months or less
• Name:
­ TestNation!
• Product:
­ Awesome electronic test management and test taking platform for high schools
• Market:
­ Over 16M students and over 1M teachers in about 36K secondary schools
• Goals:
1. Save 1 hour of time per test for teachers in manual test creation, grading, and reporting
• 1hr x 5 tests x 1M teachers = 5M hrs x $40/hr = $200M in savings that can be spent
elsewhere
• 1hr x 5 tests x 1M teachers = 5M hrs of additional teaching of students
2. Improve quality and reliability of testing results (limit cheating and favoritism)
3
Where do we start?

4. Typical Project Inception Flow
4
Project
Charter
Delivery
Product
Roadmap
Delivery
PM
Sponsor
Product
Manager
Team(s)
Team(s)
Requirements
Sprint 0
Blitz
Planning
Sprint 0
Specs
Lean
Startup
Build a minimal
viable product
Backlog
TeamCustomer
Development

5. Typical Project Inception Flow
5
Project
Charter
Delivery
Product
Roadmap
Delivery
PM
Sponsor
Product
Manager
Requirements
Sprint 0
Blitz
Planning
Sprint 0
Specs
Lean
Startup
Build a minimal
viable product
Backlog
Team(s)
Team(s)
TeamCustomer
Development
Where is the customer or
user in the process?

6. Integrate User Centered Design into Project Inceptions for Success
6
Product
Visioning
User
Profiling
Story
Mapping
Agile
Delivery
Cross-functional Inception Team – Customer, users, delivery team, product/project mgmt
Delivery Teams
• Drives more user experience and product-centric design thinking sooner
• Provides rich context to guide planning, prioritization, and decisions
• Tools for entire team to UNDERSTAND THE BIG PICTURE
Backlog of
Features
Project Inceptions / Planning Workshops
Problem / Solution
Business Model
Business Case
Project Charter
Personas
Story
Maps

7. Integrate User Centered Design into Project Inceptions = Success
7
Product
Visioning
User
Profiling
Story
Mapping
Agile
Delivery
Cross-functional Inception Team – Customer, users, delivery team, product/project mgmt
Delivery Teams
• Drives more user experience and product-centric design thinking sooner
• Provides rich context to guide planning, prioritization, and decisions
• Tools for entire team to UNDERSTAND THE BIG PICTURE
Backlog of
Features
Project Inceptions / Planning Workshops
Problem / Solution
Business Model
Business Case
Project Charter
Personas
Story
Maps

8. Why Personas
• Needs
­ Quick way to develop a customer or user profile
­ Go beyond basic demographics
­ Develop shared understanding of users environment, behavior,
concerns, and motivations
• Positive Outcomes
­ Make the user and their experience a 1st class citizen
­ Guide decision making in business models, product roadmaps,
projects, product backlogs, UX design, etc.
8

9. Persona Development using Empathy Maps
9
Six questions to
quickly profile a
customer or user
Developed by
Scott Mathews of XPLANE

10. Let’s Profile
Profile one TestNation! user using an Empathy Map
1. Generate list of possible users and select one to profile
2. Individually brainstorm one comment for each question SILENTLY
3. When everyone is ready then take turns adding comments to the map (consolidate
similar comments into one comment)
4. Give the persona a name, read out the profile within group for confirmation
10

11. Show and tell, persona style
Would one persona please stand-up and introduce themself
11

12. User Story Maps
• A collection of user stories is a product backlog – but we need more CONTEXT
• A user story map is an approach to ORGANIZING and PRIORITIZING user
stories using a multi-dimensional arrangement of goals, activities, and stories
• Positive Outcomes
­ Makes end to end user experience or workflow visible
­ Show relationships between larger stories to smaller stories as well as alternate
variations and alternate flows
­ Confirm completeness of the backlog
­ Context for prioritization and release planning that focuses on goals and activities
­ Team’s own visual language for big picture thinking and context
12

13. User Story Maps - Real World Example
13

14. User Story Maps - Described
14
Time
Releases Priority
High
Low
Variations
Variations
User Activities
User Stories
Tell the big story of the product – a day in the life of a user
User Goals
Walking
Skeleton

15. User Story Maps - Described with examples
15
Time
Releases Priority
High
Low
Variations
Variations
User Activities
User Stories
Tell the big story of the product – a day in the life of a user
User Goals Organize
Email
Manage
Email
Create
Basic
Open
Basic
Delete
Email
Open
HTML
Create
HTML
Manage
Calendar
Mark
Read
Walking
Skeleton
Compose
Email
Read
Email
Delete
Email
Search
Email
File
Emails
Archive
Email
(begin with verbs)

16. User Story Maps - Advanced
16
Time
User Goals
User Activities
User Stories Releases Priority
High
Low
Variations
Variations
UI Mockups
Organize
Email
Manage
Email
Create
Basic
Open
Basic
Delete
Email
Mark
Read
Open
HTML
Create
HTML
Manage
Calendar
System
Action
Walking
Skeleton
Compose
Email
Read
Email
Delete
Email
Search
Email
File
Emails
Archive
Email

17. Let’s Practice
We’re going to create a Story Map for our TestNation! solution
1. Select one persona to start with
2. Brainstorm user goals
3. Brainstorm user activities – build the walking skeleton
• “How does the user X accomplish Y goal? What are the steps they take?”
4. Brainstorm user stories – add meat to the bone
5. Identify alternate paths
• Find alternate variations by walking the process and asking, “What else could they
do?”
17

18. Personal & Story Mapping Wrap-up
Observations?
Questions?
Thank you!
18