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Guides product managers through creating a user story map with adaptive questions, producing a two-dimensional map of backbone activities, user tasks, and release slices.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/product-manager-skills:user-story-mapping-workshopThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Guide product managers through creating a user story map by asking adaptive questions about the system, users, workflow, and priorities—then generating a two-dimensional map with backbone (activities), user tasks, and release slices. Use this to move from flat backlogs to visual story maps that communicate the big picture, identify missing functionality, and enable meaningful release planning—a...
Guide product managers through creating a user story map by asking adaptive questions about the system, users, workflow, and priorities—then generating a two-dimensional map with backbone (activities), user tasks, and release slices. Use this to move from flat backlogs to visual story maps that communicate the big picture, identify missing functionality, and enable meaningful release planning—avoiding "context-free mulch" where stories lose connection to the overall system narrative.
This is not a backlog generator—it's a visual communication framework that organizes work by user workflow (horizontal) and priority (vertical).
A story map (Jeff Patton) organizes user stories in two dimensions:
Horizontal axis (left to right): Activities arranged in narrative/workflow order—the sequence you'd use explaining the system to someone
Vertical axis (top to bottom): Priority within each activity, with the most essential tasks at the top
Structure:
Backbone (Activities across top)
↓
User Tasks (descending vertically by priority)
↓
Details/Acceptance Criteria (at the bottom)
The Backbone: Essential activities form the system's structural core—these aren't prioritized against each other; they're the narrative flow.
Walking Skeleton: The highest-priority tasks across all activities form the minimal viable product—the smallest end-to-end functionality.
Ribs: Supporting tasks descend vertically under each activity, indicating priority through placement.
Left-to-Right, Top-to-Bottom Build Strategy: Build incrementally across all major features rather than completing one feature fully before starting another.
Use workshop-facilitation as the default interaction protocol for this skill.
It defines:
Other (specify) when useful)This file defines the domain-specific assessment content. If there is a conflict, follow this file's domain logic.
This interactive skill asks up to 5 adaptive questions, offering 3-4 enumerated options at each step.
Use template.md for the facilitation agenda and outputs checklist.
Interaction pattern: Pair with skills/workshop-facilitation/SKILL.md when you want a one-step-at-a-time flow with numbered recommendations at decision points and quick-select options for regular questions. If the user asks for a single-shot output, skip the multi-turn facilitation.
Agent suggests:
Before we create your story map, let's gather context:
Product/Feature Context:
User Context:
You can paste this content directly, or describe the system briefly.
Agent asks: "What are you mapping? (What's the scope?)"
Offer 4 enumerated options:
Or describe your specific scope.
User response: [Selection or custom]
Agent asks: "Who are the primary users for this map? (List personas or user segments.)"
Offer 4 enumerated options:
Or describe your users.
Adaptation: Use personas from context provided in Step 0 (proto-personas, JTBD, etc.)
User response: [Selection or custom]
Agent says: "Let's build the backbone—the narrative flow of activities users perform to accomplish their goal."
Agent generates 5-8 activities based on scope (Q1) and users (Q2), arranged left-to-right in workflow order.
Example (if Scope = "E-commerce checkout"):
Backbone Activities (left to right):
1. Browse Products
2. Add to Cart
3. Review Cart
4. Enter Shipping Info
5. Enter Payment Info
6. Confirm Order
7. Receive Confirmation
Agent asks: "Does this backbone capture the full workflow? Should we add, remove, or reorder activities?"
User response: [Approve, modify, or add custom activities]
Agent says: "Now let's add user tasks under each activity, organized by priority (top = must-have, bottom = nice-to-have)."
Agent generates 3-5 user tasks per activity, arranged vertically by priority.
Example (for Activity 2: "Add to Cart"):
Add to Cart (Activity)
├─ Add single item to cart (must-have, walking skeleton)
├─ Adjust quantity (must-have)
├─ Add multiple items at once (should-have)
├─ Save item for later (nice-to-have)
└─ Add gift wrapping (nice-to-have)
Agent repeats for all backbone activities, showing the full map.
Agent asks: "Does this capture the key tasks? Are priorities correct (top = MVP, bottom = later releases)?"
User response: [Approve, modify, or add custom tasks]
Agent says: "Let's define release slices by drawing horizontal lines across the map."
Agent generates 3 release slices:
Release 1 (Walking Skeleton): Top-priority tasks across all activities—minimal end-to-end functionality
Release 2 (Next Increment): Second-priority tasks that enhance the core workflow
Release 3 (Polish/Expansion): Third-priority tasks (nice-to-haves, edge cases, optimizations)
Example:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Release 1 (Walking Skeleton):
- Browse products (basic list view)
- Add single item to cart
- Review cart (line items + total)
- Enter shipping info (name, address)
- Enter payment info (credit card only)
- Confirm order (basic confirmation)
- Receive email confirmation
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Release 2 (Enhanced):
- Product filtering/search
- Adjust quantity in cart
- Save for later
- Multiple shipping options
- Multiple payment methods
- Order tracking link
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Release 3 (Polish):
- Product recommendations
- Guest checkout
- Gift wrapping
- Promo codes
- Advanced payment options
- Post-purchase surveys
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Agent asks: "Do these release slices make sense? Should we adjust scope or priorities?"
User response: [Approve or modify]
After completing the flow, the agent outputs:
# User Story Map: [Scope from Q1]
**Users:** [From Q2]
**Date:** [Today's date]
---
## Backbone (Activities)
[Activity 1] → [Activity 2] → [Activity 3] → [Activity 4] → [Activity 5] → [Activity 6]
---
## Full Story Map
### [Activity 1: Name]
- **[Task 1.1]** — Must-have (Release 1)
- **[Task 1.2]** — Should-have (Release 2)
- **[Task 1.3]** — Nice-to-have (Release 3)
### [Activity 2: Name]
- **[Task 2.1]** — Must-have (Release 1)
- **[Task 2.2]** — Should-have (Release 2)
- **[Task 2.3]** — Nice-to-have (Release 3)
[...repeat for all activities...]
---
## Release Slices
### Release 1: Walking Skeleton (MVP)
**Goal:** Minimal end-to-end functionality
**Stories:**
- [Task 1.1] — [Activity 1]
- [Task 2.1] — [Activity 2]
- [Task 3.1] — [Activity 3]
- [Task 4.1] — [Activity 4]
- [Task 5.1] — [Activity 5]
- [Task 6.1] — [Activity 6]
**Why this is the walking skeleton:** Delivers complete workflow with simplest version of each activity.
---
### Release 2: Enhanced Functionality
**Goal:** Improve core workflow with priority enhancements
**Stories:**
- [Task 1.2] — [Activity 1]
- [Task 2.2] — [Activity 2]
- [Task 3.2] — [Activity 3]
[...]
---
### Release 3: Polish & Expansion
**Goal:** Nice-to-haves, edge cases, optimizations
**Stories:**
- [Task 1.3] — [Activity 1]
- [Task 2.3] — [Activity 2]
[...]
---
## Next Steps
1. **Refine stories:** Use `skills/user-story/SKILL.md` to write detailed stories with acceptance criteria
2. **Estimate effort:** Score stories (story points, t-shirt sizes)
3. **Validate with stakeholders:** Walk through map left-to-right, confirm priorities
4. **Display map:** Print/post as information radiator for ongoing reference
---
**Ready to write user stories? Let me know if you'd like to refine the map or break down specific stories.**
Q1 Response: "Major feature area — E-commerce checkout workflow"
Q2 Response: "Single persona — Online shopper"
Q3 - Backbone Generated:
Browse → Add to Cart → Review Cart → Enter Shipping → Enter Payment → Confirm → Receive Confirmation
Q4 - User Tasks Generated:
Browse Products
├─ View product list (R1)
├─ Search/filter (R2)
└─ Product recommendations (R3)
Add to Cart
├─ Add single item (R1)
├─ Adjust quantity (R2)
└─ Save for later (R3)
Review Cart
├─ View line items + total (R1)
├─ Apply promo code (R2)
└─ Estimate shipping cost (R3)
[...etc...]
Q5 - Release Slices:
Why this works:
Backbone (WRONG):
UI Layer → API Layer → Database Layer → Deployment
Why this fails:
Fix:
Symptom: Story map is just a vertical list, no horizontal narrative
Consequence: Loses communication benefit; still "context-free mulch"
Fix: Force horizontal structure—activities across top, tasks descending vertically
Symptom: Backbone = "Frontend → Backend → Database"
Consequence: Not user-centric, can't deliver value incrementally
Fix: Backbone should follow user workflow, not system layers
Symptom: Release 1 = "Build Activity 1 fully," Release 2 = "Build Activity 2 fully"
Consequence: No end-to-end value until all activities complete
Fix: Walking skeleton = thin slice across ALL activities, incrementally enhanced
Symptom: Trying to map every edge case and acceptance criterion upfront
Consequence: Analysis paralysis, lost big picture
Fix: Start with backbone + high-level tasks, refine later
Symptom: Story map lives in Jira/Miro, never displayed
Consequence: Loses value as information radiator
Fix: Print/post map physically; make it visible to team daily
skills/user-story-mapping/SKILL.md — Component skill with story mapping templateskills/user-story/SKILL.md — Converts map tasks into detailed user storiesskills/proto-persona/SKILL.md — Defines users for mappingskills/jobs-to-be-done/SKILL.md — Informs backbone activitiesskills/user-story/SKILL.md, skills/user-story-splitting/SKILL.md, and skills/user-story-mapping/SKILL.md.Skill type: Interactive
Suggested filename: user-story-mapping-workshop.md
Suggested placement: /skills/interactive/
Dependencies: Uses skills/user-story-mapping/SKILL.md, skills/user-story/SKILL.md, skills/proto-persona/SKILL.md
npx claudepluginhub deanpeters/product-manager-skills --plugin workshop-facilitationGuides creation of user story maps to visualize journeys, define walking skeletons, and slice releases for MVP scoping and Agile planning.
Creates a hierarchical user story map from activities to tasks, organized left-to-right by narrative flow. Useful for prioritizing features and identifying gaps in user journeys.
Creates user story maps organizing backlogs by activities, prioritized tasks, walking skeleton, and outcome-based release slices. Outputs story-map.md and prioritization.md.