Generating User Stories using Impact Mapping

When I started working as a Software Developer back in 1999, I was sent to the customer location within 30 minutes of joining. I used to sit just 6 meters away from the real users of our product. It was a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition(SCADA) system for the State Electricity Board. I was welcomed by 2 DEC Alpha Servers and 17 Compaq desktops. We were just 4 developers. I was amazed by the access to technology and amount of learning that I was going to get. However, after spending 18 months of working on this product, the biggest learning was not technology but what makes a product successful. By interacting with users, I realized they cared less about technology and they expected simple solutions to their day to day problems.

For example, once we had created beautiful and fancy reports with lot of real time data to help them make right decisions. I had spent good amount of time building it. When I showed it to them, they just needed a simple 2 column report. From that moment onwards, I spent more time talking to them than coding the solution.

Over the years, I have learnt different ways and means of having better conversation with users. Impact mapping is one such tool which puts the users and their job at the center of conversation. Well, we can use the excuse of users don't know what they want. They may not not know what they want but they know well about their jobs and pains they have in doing their job. I have learnt from my experience that putting the users and their jobs at the center of conversation, helps in building useful products. Here is small snippet of how to use Impact Mapping to have such a conversation.

If you want to learn more about building products, join me at one of the product management(CSPO) courses offered by Leanpitch or signup for online courses that will go live soon at PlayScrum Agility Platform

#UserStory #Scrum #ProductOwnership #UserResearch #Conversations #ImpactMapping #Agile