A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a development team with the mission to liberate the true value of content in the entertainment industry by empowering artists and composers with solutions that optimized the monetization of their assets. The battle against the complexity of the music industry was fierce. The team was constantly getting hit through the refinement process of its development initiatives.

The refinement meeting seemed like a standardized procedure. But the team unconsciously followed many antipatterns. The meeting had become a requirements announcement event instead of a working session. This caused an increased knowledge gap, lack of challenge, and a reduction in ownership. The meeting was not tailored to the purpose it was supposed to serve. This resulted in unidimensional focus (either business or tech), lack of participation, demotivation, and low morale. 

To address the aforementioned issues, the team decided to strike back at these tendencies. They created a new epic refinement structure by:

1. Introduced the Epic Ambassadors meeting
2. Split the refinement meeting into 3 time-boxed parts with a specific agenda and outcome
3. Leveraged the offline asynchronous technical analysis of a story by self opted-in team members
   

Epic ambassadors

Target

The objective of this meeting, which is inspired by the 3 amigos perspective check, is to reduce feelings of uncertainty and disconnection towards an unknown work item and save the team’s time later, by proactively answering high-level questions and doing a feasibility check.

What

This is a pre-refinement slot in which participants opt-in to act as ambassadors of the epic for the rest of the team. Ambassadors are the point of reference when the high-level tech conversation of the epic’s refinement comes to technical requirements or spontaneous peer questions. The ambassadors will assist the team to focus on the business-oriented discussion by instantly answering any technical question or addressing the team’s uncertainty.

High Council Chamber

Target

The objective of this part is to present a new work item to the team, cater to the value-based debate, and enhance active participation in later stages of the refinement.

What

During this phase, the entire team faces a new work item. It is the mechanism that ensures the business-oriented challenge of the proposed solution’s value. At last, the team members are called to voluntarily formulate pairs to further analyze the assigned stories asynchronously and offline.

Jedi Apprenticeship

Target

The objective of this activity is to increase ownership and improve the quality of work by providing an already ready-to-be-reviewed proposed solution.

What

Now the team, in pairs, dives into the details of a ticket without the anti-patterns of large group discussions, like peer/time pressure, authority, and anchoring bias. The offline and asynchronous activity improves the quality of the proposed solution and its value. This allows the team to design a high-level tech approach, identify dependencies, define spikes on unknown items and proactively resolve possible roadblocks in the process.

The mirror war

Target

The objective of this part of the journey is to validate the quality of the refinement outcome while it reduces the knowledge gap on new items and increases participation in the process.

What

During this slot, the team splits into parallel working groups. Each group consists of a member that defined the initial solution during the Jedi apprenticeship and one reviewer, who is not a member of the initial design pair. The outcome of this ritual is a fully completed user story, for which the team can confidently estimate effort.

The rise of an epic

Target

The objective of this part is to increase awareness across the team and validate that the working items have all the necessary information to be developed.

What

During this slot, the working groups are merged to share the outcome of the process, validate each item’s estimation and declare as “Ready for Development” the working items.

Future endeavors

Every era brings its challenges, but the one thing that never changes is people. As in the refinement process, the team’s traits will be further analyzed to design new working habits in other dimensions that apply to human-centered needs and principles. Otherwise, people will ignore mechanisms that ignore people.

“Much to learn you still have…my old padawan. This is just the beginning!”

Yoda

Dimitris Tagkalos

Software Engineer @ ORFIUM

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dtagkalos/ https://github.com/dtagkalos93

Sofia Chatzi

QA Engineer @ ORFIUM

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofia-chatzi-638b1b63/
https://github.com/sofch

Yiannis Mavraganis

Director of Organizational Effectiveness @ ORFIUM

Alexandros Synadinos

Product Manager

Are you User Story Mapping yet?

It’s no secret that communication is one of the most important functions that teams need to do well in order to function. But how can teams with different areas of expertise be sure that they are talking about the same problem, the same solution and the same method to get there? Enter User Story Mapping.

It is a process that helps create shared communication among team members in order to “talk about the user’s journey through your product by building a simple model that tells your user’s story as you do” (Jeff Patton).

Shared Understanding

The primary goal of a user story mapping workshop is to create a shared understanding with your team. After a successful session you all will know what you need to build, to solve what problem for users, and be sure that you are talking about the same thing.

Shared understanding doesn’t come from writing perfect documents. A product document, even the most carefully written one, will help your team visualise problems, the users that have them and, in the best case, the solutions your product will introduce to these problems. But in order to make sure that all the team members understand the same problem, users and solution, you need to bring these people into a room (yes, virtual rooms count) and discuss.

Product/User Flows

After running a good user story mapping workshop, your output will be Product/User Flows. Having explored the business problems behind the current user flows, you are more ready to build new ones in order to solve your user’s problems.

You will not be able to explore every detail of your user flows, and that’s ok. You need to tackle the problems by priority, value, and impact.

How to run a User Story Mapping

Now that you know what User Story Mapping is and why you need to have it for your team. But how do you run a workshop effectively? The main artifact of your User Story Mapping workshop is the board where all the information should be depicted.

Step 1 of 6 – Preparation

As a PM, you need to prepare your User Story Mapping workshop. You need to build a lot of information from the teams and properly gather all the requirements ahead of time. Things you should consider gathering or writing down:

• Business Context
• Personas
• Jobs to be done (for your personas)
• Current user problems

Pro tip: You can find a lot of templates online to help you structure the above information!

Step 2 of 6 – Backbone

In the second step, you need to add all the main activities (backbone) on top of the map, in the order that users should perform them while using the product. The backbone should consist of main user activities that are clearly separated and are not part of the same solid user flow.

Each main activity should have its own internal story (as we will see in the next step) with an intro, a set of actions, and a specific result.

This can include activities like “Organize email”, “Manage email”, etc.

Story mapping flow might not be the same as the final user’s journey in the app. It can also include forks and loops.

Step 3 of 6 – User Steps

After we have established the main activities of our user, it’s time we added the smaller activities, or steps, that take place in each of the main activities. These steps should describe the user’s intro to the activity, the different screens they have to go through.  Even though having screens this early is not optimal, it will not harm you to have a visual guide. But do not design wireframes here, it’s too early and not necessary.

This can include steps like “Compose email”, “Read email”, “Delete email”, etc.

Step 4 of 6 – Activities (aka, Options)

Once you have added the steps, you can now start adding all the details that each activity contains, in regards to functionality. This is the step where you need to add all the user actions and interactions with the smaller activities/steps within each “screen”.

Each step must include a functionality of the product or a user action and not something that the development team should do, like manual work or research.

This can include actions like “Create and send basic email”, “Send RTF email”, etc.

Pro tip: Avoid the How

User Story Mapping is about mapping your user’s journey. Shocking, I know . You are working on a high level now, in order to help you drill down later on and, of course, create a shared understanding of what your product is trying to achieve.

You should avoid diving into the technical implementation just yet. It’s out of the scope and it will only add obstacles in the process. You can solve a problem in many different ways, but this isn’t the time to think about the technical & design solutions, it’s all about figuring out and agreeing upon the problems themselves.

Step 5 of 6 – Annotate

Annotation is perhaps one of the most important steps in the entire process. Once you have mapped all the particular activities (or options) on the map, it’s vital to annotate on the post-its extra information like concerns or unknowns that will help you focus later on and prioritize. Annotations can include:

• Hard to develop solutions
• Uncertainties on the problem
• UX research needed
• Business obscurity

Pro Tip: You can define the possible annotations from the preparation step.

Step 6 of 6 – Prioritization

The final step of the process is to prioritize the activities and decide what we are going to do first. Prioritization should be based on the value and effort for each option.

Remember the MVP process from Henrik Kniberg? He suggests that we should work towards delivering value to the user using small iterations and re-designing the product instead of trying to deliver the end result all at once. This is where agile takes place.

So, a gentle reminder that priority goes to prioritizing iterations that make sense in both a technical and a business perspective, but most of all from a user’s perspective.

When to run a User Story Mapping

This workshop can be adjusted to any product at any stage of their life:

• MVP: You can run a user story mapping workshop to identify what you need to build first to maximize the value you are delivering to users
• Live product: You should run a User Story Mapping workshop to a) create the map that you hadn’t created in the beginning and b) to see where your new feature will fit in the existing user journey.

Who should participate

User Story Mapping is an extension of the 3 Amigos workshop that each development team can run prior to building each feature. The important improvement is that it adds the business perspective into the mix.

What you should bring to the table

PM: Backbone and main activity builder. The PM is the decision-maker of the workshop

Business/Sales: Brings the business knowledge and the customer experience/feedback/opinion

Engineering: Makes sure that everything discussed is doable, at least with the existing knowledge (but remember to avoid the nitty-gritty of the how)

UX/Design: Becomes the glue between Business and Product, makes sure the steps and user activities are in the right place and make sense

QA: Puts the final touches on the entire process, will make sure that user flows are structured, circles are formed (where necessary)

How we run a User Story Mapping workshop at ORFIUM

For us, the User Story Mapping workshop takes 2 sessions. This gives us more time to identify the user flows for a single product where the users are hard to get and the logic is complex. This is how we can best make sure that the entire team has a common understanding of the problem we are trying to solve and the way we are going to do that.

Step 1 – Find a room (5 minutes)

The first step is to find a room with a whiteboard (or a clean wall would do), isolated from the rest of the rooms. This room will be dedicated to the team but will also allow breaks.

Step 2 – Order post-its (5 minutes)

Post-its are the main material for running the workshop as our main goal is to create the board we’ve been discussing.

Make sure you have enough post-its for everyone to write and add to the board, even if you might end up throwing away some of them.

We use 3 sizes of post-its:

• Large for the main activities
• Medium square for the smaller activities and for the backbone, in a different color
• Small for the annotations

Step 3 – Add Additional Material (Recommended for a physical workshop – 1 day)

We add additional material around the room to guide the participants through the entire workshop but also keep all the references we need.

To make it easier to link the slides on the walls with existing information on an online document, we added QR codes on each slide with a link to the original page with the full description.

The additional material included:

• Jobs to be done
• Glossary / reference / terminology
• Collaboration pattern

Anyone could also annotate or add post-its to the slides and ask questions, and the Business or the Product was there to answer them.

Step 4 – Prepare the Board (30 minutes)

Since it’s the Product Manager’s duty to set up this meeting, she should have at least a draft version of how the board would look like, at least in regards to the backbone. So, we add the initial post-its for the backbone, and perhaps for the main activities, to give the team some structure.

The board could look like the one on the left, by the end of the workshop, where all the main activities have steps and options, along with all the annotations.

Step 5 – Fishbowl Collaboration Pattern

To allow the team to collaborate better and avoid overcrowded boards and too many voices, we introduced the fishbowl collaboration style.

This collaboration style allowed us to have a focus area where every member of the workshop that was in that area was allowed to talk about the board and the post-its. Everyone outside the area was free to explore the room, be on their phone or even read more online.

This way we managed to have our focus on the board and allow each person to clearly write the post-its and explain what they were writing.

Step 6 – Workshop Time

Time: It depends on the size of the product, the preparation, and the team’s experience.

Once we explained all the “rules”, the additional material, and the collaboration style, the team was ready to jump in and start adding post-its.

Clearly, for the first 20-30 minutes we added no post-its. We were asking a huge amount of questions about business specifics and backbone items, but this was absolutely necessary for the entire team to start building a shared understanding.

Prioritization & Release Versions

Keep in mind to have some time in the end to prioritize your post-its in release versions. It’s very important for the team, once they understand the big picture to put the blocks in prioritized order and know what’s next.

References

• User Story Mapping
• User Story Mapping : Jeff Patton : 9781491904909
  
  

Ioannis Papikas

Senior Product Manager @ ORFIUM

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ioannis-papikas/

Change is many things. It’s a complicated process, rarely linear in its evolution, from inception to implementation and beyond. It can be messy, confusing, unexpected and, this one’s for sure, it’s unavoidable. Whether change comes along with new leadership, is ushered in by new technologies, is necessitated by new team members or a reorganization of your team, change is happening whether you like it or not. 

As a PM you’ll have to cope with uncharted waters at some point in your career. 

And as a leader, you will need to act like a firefighter, battling fires inside and outside of your team, to ensure that your people are secure. To accomplish all this, you will need to set clear goals, while also staying hyper-aware of how daily activities may change for you and your team. In this post, we will go through how you can manage and facilitate change effectively within your organization. 

Have a plan

“Management makes a system work. It helps you do what you know how to do. Leadership builds systems or transforms old ones.” ― John P. Kotter, Leading Change 

Despite your best efforts, implementing change can be pretty tricky. To kick start the process with the best chances for success, you need to have a solid plan in place to guide you and your team. You should try to identify the starting point, the route you’ll take, and the destination. It is critical for a Project Manager to build a plan that will address how the change will affect her and her team, along with the process that everyone needs to follow. Set measurable success metrics for each step of the process. Clarify the goals and identify the focus of your team, so everyone is on the same page and you can effectively lead the endeavor. As a PM you need to have a clear vision of the promised land that comes at the end of the journey, describe it to your team and get everyone on board. It’s a great idea to keep a list of the key priorities that you and your team need to address first. That way, you can revisit them everytime one of you is not sure of what is going to happen next.

Communicate the change

“Powerful and sustained change requires constant communication, not only throughout the rollout but after the major elements of the plan are in place. The more kinds of communication employed, the more effective they are.” – DeAnne Aguirre

When everything is changing, clear communication is one of the main ingredients for corporate success. No matter how strong the culture is in your organization, people adapt to change if you are able to address important questions such as their work security and their future in the company. As a Project Manager, you will need to design a communication strategy that you should iterate often based on the feedback you receive from your team and other stakeholders.

Make sure that everyone within your team is aware of the situation that exists today and the next steps. Talking about developments and goals clearly and early to all team members is a good way to make sure everyone is aligned with what is happening. In difficult times, people need to feel secure, understand the bigger picture and see their personal chances of success. When discussing with your team, show empathy, provide direction, guidance and strive to understand their feelings. Foster an environment in which they are inclined to share their own ideas, without fear. The real contribution of your role lies in the ability to help the people around you and their dynamics, not the change itself. 

Use Empathy

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” ― Ernest Hemingway

Emotional intelligence plays an important role in cultivating long-lasting relationships with your team. As a PM, you will need to cultivate a culture that gives the opportunity to members to express their problems openly. Listen carefully to their concerns, how they are dealing with the change and show compassion and understanding. It is easy to jump to a conclusion and quickly respond as you listen to someone. The key is to practice active listening without judgment and to make team members feel respected and understood. If a person has confided in you with a problem, follow up to see how they are doing and whether there is something you can do. Reduce the Analysis Paralysis that may occur. As humans, when dealing with problems we have a tendency to over analyse them which then leads to numbness. Guide your team with empathy to a specific goal that they feel familiar with. And do not forget, get regular feedback to ensure that all of the team is included and on board with your approach. 

Share the success 

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson

Under times of pressure and change, leaders need to celebrate the wins that their people achieve. As a PM, you need to remind your team that their contribution is critical to the process. Celebrate small wins with them, every chance you can. 

Change doesn’t come easy to almost anybody. But that doesn’t mean that it needs to disrupt the great work that your team does and the relationships that they’ve built. Remember, in turbulent times, PMs need to: 

• Embrace change and make a solid plan 
• Communicate and listen to their team 
• Show compassion and understanding 
• Celebrate small wins

Alexia Vazoura

Product Manager @ Orfium

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexiavazoura/