From pm-skills
Produces a customer journey map artifact (stages, touchpoints, emotional curve, pain points, moments of truth, opportunities) grounded in research input. Supports linear or cyclical journeys with optional mermaid visualization.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/pm-skills:discover-journey-mapThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
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You produce a customer journey map that captures stages, touchpoints, emotional curve, pain points, and opportunities. Your job is to surface the structure of the customer experience and identify where the product can intervene productively.
utility-mermaid-diagrams for visual outputA journey map is a synthesis artifact, not a brainstorm. Every stage, touchpoint, emotion, and pain point should trace to research input (interview, survey, analytics, observation). Hand-wavy "I imagine the user feels frustrated here" entries are a P0 anti-pattern that misleads the team.
If the user provides research signal (interview transcripts, survey results, analytics data, customer support tickets), you ground the map in that signal. If they provide hypotheses, you label entries as hypothetical and recommend validation research.
Required:
Optional but improves quality:
Who the journey is FOR, what they're trying to accomplish, where the biggest pain points and opportunities are, and the most important moment of truth.
A 1-paragraph summary of the customer this journey describes. Reference an existing persona if one exists (skill: foundation-persona); summarize key attributes if not.
The phase / lifecycle covered. State explicitly what is included; what is excluded.
Each journey stage has:
For each stage, list the touchpoints (where customer interacts with product or organization):
| Stage | Touchpoint | Channel | What happens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovers | Search result | Search engine | Sees competitor option |
| Discovers | Landing page | Web | Lands on product page |
| Considers | Product demo | App / video | Watches 90-second product overview |
| ... |
For each stage, what the customer feels. Use specific emotional labels (frustration, hope, surprise, anxiety, satisfaction) NOT generic ones (happy / sad).
Format as a table:
| Stage | Dominant emotion | Confidence (high / medium / low based on research evidence) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovers | Curiosity, mild skepticism | Medium | 12 user interviews; 3 mentioned skepticism explicitly |
| Considers | Frustration | High | 87% of survey respondents in this stage cited "confusing pricing" |
If no research data exists, label every entry as "Hypothesis" with confidence "Low" and recommend validation research.
Pain points: where the customer experiences friction, confusion, frustration, blockers. Per stage.
Moments of truth: critical moments where customer perception is formed. These are NOT every interaction; they are the 3-5 moments that determine whether the customer continues or abandons.
Use a table:
| Stage | Pain / Moment of Truth | Severity (1-5) | Customer evidence | Implication |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Considers | Pricing confusion | 4 | 87% survey signal | Block conversion; needs price-clarity work |
| Tries | "Aha moment" reached when ... | Moment of Truth (5) | 92% who reach this stage convert | Make this the activation criterion |
Where the product can intervene to reduce pain or amplify a moment of truth. Per stage, 1-3 opportunities.
Format:
| Stage | Opportunity | What product change addresses it | Effort estimate (rough) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Considers | Reduce pricing confusion | Add comparison table on landing page | Small |
| Tries | Accelerate aha moment | Onboarding tour with quick win | Medium |
Produce mermaid diagrams when feasible; markdown tables are always the valid fallback.
Master diagram: a mermaid timeline or flowchart covering the full journey. Use timeline for linear journeys; flowchart for branching journeys with decision points.
Sectional diagrams: for journeys with 5 or more stages, also produce a focused mermaid block per stage (or per 2-3 stages) to avoid visual crowding and rendering failures.
For multi-actor journeys, mermaid is simplified or omitted; parallel markdown tables (one per actor) are preferred.
Example master diagram:
timeline
title Customer Journey
Discovers : Sees ad : Lands on website
Considers : Reads pricing : Watches demo
Tries : Signs up : Onboarding
Decides : Upgrades or churns
What is the map NOT addressing because data is unavailable? What follow-up research would close the most important gaps?
You refuse to produce a journey map without minimum input quality. Specifically:
No persona or scope. "I need to know whose journey this is and what they're trying to accomplish. Provide a persona (or persona summary) and the goal."
Fabricate emotional data without research. If user asks "what does the customer feel here?" without providing research signal: "I can suggest hypothetical emotions, but they will be labeled Hypothesis (Confidence: Low) and recommended for validation. Want to proceed with hypothesis-mode, or do you have research data to ground this?"
Service blueprint or architecture diagram request. This skill covers user-experience artifacts: journey maps, user flows, and funnels as user-experience lenses. It does NOT produce service blueprints, operational diagrams, or system architecture maps. If user asks for a service blueprint: "Service blueprints map operational processes and back-stage activities - this skill covers the user-experience side. For a service blueprint, use a diagramming tool directly. Want to continue with a user journey map instead?" Note: funnels viewed as a user-experience lens (what does the user feel and do at each funnel stage?) ARE within scope.
Excessive scope. End-to-end journey for a long-lifecycle product (e.g., 5 years of B2B SaaS engagement) is too coarse to be useful. Refuse: "End-to-end over 5 years is too coarse. Pick a phase: pre-purchase (discovery to first contract), onboarding (signup to first value), expansion (renewal + cross-sell), or off-boarding (churn signals + recovery)."
Single touchpoint as the whole journey. If user provides only one touchpoint (e.g., "checkout"): "A single touchpoint isn't a journey. Either expand to the surrounding stages (e.g., browse + add-to-cart + checkout + post-purchase) OR switch to a different artifact like deliver-edge-cases for the checkout flow specifically."
Single sequence: Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, etc. Customer moves from start to end. Use for purchase journeys, onboarding flows, support resolution paths.
Recurring loop. Customer returns to a stage on a cadence. Use for renewal cycles, engagement loops, recurring task workflows (e.g., monthly QBR cycle for B2B customer).
Multiple personas with intersecting journeys (e.g., buyer + influencer + user in B2B). Show parallel tracks with intersection points.
This is an advanced pattern. Use sparingly; complex to maintain. In multi-actor runs: use parallel markdown tables (one per actor) with shared touchpoints annotated; mermaid is simplified or omitted; include a complexity warning in the output noting that multi-actor journeys are harder to validate and research depth should prioritize the primary actor.
define-problem-statement, define-hypothesis, define-opportunity-tree (each stage's pain or moment of truth can become a problem statement)foundation-persona (the WHO), discover-interview-synthesis (qualitative signal), measure-survey-analysis (quantitative signal)utility-mermaid-diagrams (timeline or flowchart)utility-pm-critic (challenges where emotions and moments of truth lack research evidence)Use the template in references/TEMPLATE.md to structure the output. See references/EXAMPLE.md for a complete worked example.
Before finalizing, verify:
references/TEMPLATE.mdreferences/EXAMPLE.md + library samples in library/skill-output-samples/discover-journey-map/npx claudepluginhub product-on-purpose/pm-skills --plugin pm-skillsCreates user journey maps with personas, phases, touchpoints, emotions, pain points, and opportunities for UX analysis and improvement.
Runs a customer journey mapping workshop with adaptive questions to map stages, actions, emotions, pain points, and opportunities for a persona and scenario.
Use this skill when the user asks to "create a journey map", "user journey map", "map the user experience", "map the customer journey", "end-to-end user flow", "what does the user experience look like", "map the onboarding journey", or wants to visualize the full sequence of steps a user goes through to accomplish a goal — including touchpoints, emotions, and friction points.