User story mapping at Felt Lab

Four people and a lot of sticky notes

Last Friday I visited the REAP Felt Lab to provide an introduction to user story mapping in a lunch-hour workshop. I’ve been a big fan of story mapping ever since I was introduced to it in a workshop by Jeff Patton back in 2008, and I was delighted when he finally released a definitive book on the topic last year. I highly recommend User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product to anyone who wants to learn more about this powerful technique that can help product development teams focus on users and their needs rather than on features.

The introduction that I delivered comes straight from Patton’s book, and the folks at Felt Lab were thoroughly engaged by the experience. It was a full house, and each team learned a lot during the surprisingly challenging exercise of creating a story map about their morning routines.

Unsurprisingly, the same engagement and enlightenment were visible during a similar uxWaterloo session back in March.

If you missed these events, keep an eye on the schedule for The Boltmade Sessions, as there’s a good chance that we’ll deliver another iteration of the workshop there.

Video highlights from Fluxible 2014

We’re roughly mid-way between Fluxible 2014 and Fluxible 2015. The Fluxible team is currently focused on our 2015 event, with speakers being announced and plenty of behind-the-scenes details being attended to. There’s some great stuff coming, and I’m sure that folks will be excited about this year’s program.

Right now, though, let’s take a moment to look back at Fluxible 2014. My conference co-chair Bob Barlow-Busch has put together this highlights video, which is a delightful celebration of the 2014 experience. Enjoy!