A user story map thrives on collaboration. The map is developed, supplemented, discussed and prioritized together in the team and with stakeholders. If you have a physical map hanging in the office, it can be added as you like. For example, with colored adhesive dots for stories with dependencies, the logo of the responsible team or symbols for complexity.

Anyone who has worked with physical user story maps also knows about their weaknesses:

• The size of the map increases very quickly and the walls are limited.
• Moving sticky notes is very tedious, especially at the beginning when not all activities or tasks have yet been identified. And what do you do with the sticky notes that are lying around on the ground early in the morning?
• At some point, the stories get into the digital issue tracking system and the one-dimensional backlog becomes the basis for discussion - the overall view is lost again.
• Distributed teams don't benefit from this valuable technology.

Digital user story map

A digital, integrated user story map tool can help. But which is best and what are the respective advantages and disadvantages? We set out on a search and took a closer look at five promising tools. We are certain that there is much more to discover in the world out there. Have you already had great experiences with an app? We welcome any feedback!

Criteria

We looked at the apps from a 5C perspective. “What is that?” Make up your mind completely. Without further ado, we created the 5K as a rating grid for this article. They stand for:

• Collaboration
• Creativity
• Connectivity
• Costs
• Conclusion

Each of the tools offers a wide range of functions. In the following description, we will only scratch the surface and give you a first impression of what is possible. We are happy to answer any questions you may have.

Summary

You are spoilt for choice.

StoriesOnBoard offers the widest range of functions when it comes to story maps, but is also limited to that.

With draw.io, you get a super-flexible tool for modeling diagrams and can easily create story maps (keep an eye out for “customer gifts” in the blog - we've prepared something for you 🙂). Unfortunately, there is no close connection between the modeled stories and the development backlog.

In turn, Story Map from Easy Agile is excellent at this. With one click, you get your backlog with all the epics and associated stories presented in two dimensions. Incredibly helpful for PO's and the team in maintaining backlogs. Limitations are evident in the creative, exploratory phase of a story map.

With Miro, you get a digital whiteboard with many templates, including a user story map. The fact that the manufacturer focused on distributed teams is quickly recognized by the many creative and collaborative functions.

The still young Draft.io app also offers similar functions. In particular, it surprises with new creative elements.

All tools viewed can be integrated with Jira. StoriesOnBoard and Miro also offer a wide range of other integrations with issue tracker or communication apps.

We are happy to help you find out which app best meets your needs.

Miro

Collaboration

Miro is a collaboration tool through and through, designed for distributed teams. In addition to the user story map template, there are many other canvases to work together on virtual whiteboards. Miro therefore leaves almost nothing to be desired when it comes to working together, virtually.

The infrastructure runs on Amazon Web Services AWS. For corporate customers, Miro offers a wide range of Security and control functions.

Creativity

The cards are easy to slide back and forth. A new card is just a mouse click away. The map can also be supplemented with sticky notes, shapes, comments, freehand drawings, mind maps, links, etc. The cards can be assigned to a person and provided with a description and due date. Unfortunately, it is not possible to assign user roles to activities or add attachments to cards.

Connectivity

In your own Miro Marketplace There are apps for the integration of a variety of well-known and common tools. From Azure DevOps, Jira and Trello to Slack, MS Teams, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox to Github, Confluence, MS Excel and Salesforce. Important: The availability of some apps is limited to selected pricing plans! Miro is also available as a smartphone and tablet app. In Video about Jira The benefits of integration are evident. With just a few clicks, cards from Jira can be displayed in Miro, Jira issues created, or cards from MIRO can be converted to Jira issues.

Costs

Miro knows 4 pricing plans. In the free version, an unlimited number of members have access. The limitation is a maximum of 3 boards and a limited number of integration apps and features. The paid plans are billed per member and differ primarily in the options for integrating Miro into the business processes/infrastructure.

Conclusion

If you decide on Miro, you get much more than just a user story map tool. Unfortunately, the map lacks user roles and the ability to add more than just text to cards. Thanks to the versatile tools, these criticisms can be mitigated with a bit of creativity. Integration with the widely used issue tracking tools Jira and Azure DevOps is only available from the team or enterprise plan. However, other widely used (partly) free tools such as Trello, Slack and Google Drive can already be integrated in the free version.

Easy Agile

Collaboration

Story maps from Easy Agile is available as an app for Jira. For this reason, the type of collaboration is also heavily based on the functions of Jira. As soon as the add-on is installed and activated, it offers the option to display stories and epics from backlogs as a story map and to work on the map as a team.

Creativity

Story Map's strength is breaking the one-dimensionality of a Jira backlog. This gives the team a tool for efficient backlog management. The epics and associated stories can be easily planned, prioritized and updated on the map.

Unfortunately, the benefits of close ties to Jira come at the expense of creativity in the exploratory phase of a story map. At the start of a new project, the activities, tasks and stories must first be identified by the team. This involves recording, discarding, reorganizing and prioritizing ideas. Because it is limited to epics and stories, Story Map is only partially suitable for this purpose.

What is currently completely missing is the level of user activity. According to roadmap However, this is the next major feature planned.

Connectivity

Easy Agile products are exclusively available in Atlassian Marketplace - available for both cloud and server. As a result, they are fully integrated into Jira but not available in alternative issue tracking apps.

Costs

In the cloud version, after a 30-day free trial period, per user is billed. With a flat rate of $10 per month, up to 10 people can use Story Map. Starting at 11 users, you will be billed in stages per user. The first 100 users cost $2.80 per user per month, up to 200 users $2.60, etc.

As an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner, we can send you an offer in Swiss francs at attractive conditions:

Request a quote

Conclusion

Story Map from Easy Agile provides excellent support for backlog maintenance in Jira. Even if you don't work with story maps, the two-dimensional presentation of the epics and stories offers considerable added value.

Due to the lack of user activity and user roles level, the app is unfortunately only partially suitable for the creative phase of creating a story map. But if you prefer the physical route anyway, Story Map can bridge the gap from exploration (sticky notes) to implementation (Jira Ticket).

Draw.io

Collaboration

With draw.io is it an app for modeling diagrams. As an individual user, you can download it online for free at draw.io  use or from there as Progressive Web App (PWA) download. In order to use the charts with others, draw.io focused on integration with Jira and Confluence. With the app from the Atlassian Marketplace, charts can be created and edited directly in Confluence or in Jira issues. Versioning is guaranteed. The charts are also indexed so that they can be found when searching in Confluence/Jira.

Creativity

Similar to MS-Visio, you get a borderless canvas on which you can let off steam. draw.io is primarily a tool for modeling. This is also reflected in the variety of existing shapes and template templates. If something is missing, that is also no problem. You can your template or a Shape Library  Just create it yourself. The individual shapes can be formatted as you please.

Adding new activities or tasks is unfortunately a bit cumbersome because all shapes have to be moved. This works just fine with marking and then moving, but a function to insert additional space (similar to OneNote) would be very helpful.

Connectivity

draw.io is available online, as a PWA, or as a Confluence/Jira add-on. MS-Visio and Gliffy diagrams, among others, can be imported. draw.io is closely linked to Confluence and the Jira issue. For example, you can insert links to a specific section in Confluence in a diagram. Unfortunately, it is not possible to insert Jira issues directly into a diagram or create Jira issues from the shapes. A link from the shape to the Jira issue can help, which means maintenance costs in return.

Are the developers calling you for a cool innovation project? draw.io can be extended with your own plug-ins.

Costs

A separate app must be purchased for Confluence and for Jira. Billing is per user. In the cloud version, the app for Confluence costs $5 per month for up to 10 users, $2 for Jira, and $0.55 or $0.2 per user/month. Further details and the costs of the server version can be found at Atlassian Marketplace or inquire directly with us. The app can be tested free of charge for 30 days. As already mentioned at the beginning, you can try out draw.io on the web for free - but without Confluence/Jira integration.

As an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner, we can send you an offer in Swiss francs at attractive conditions:

Request a quote

Conclusion

If you already have draw.io in-house, you can use this app to create wonderful story maps in Confluence and work on them with the team. If you want, you can also create mock-ups for the MVP in draw.io right away. Particularly noteworthy is the simple extension to include your own templates and shape libraries. “Write once use everywhere.” It would be desirable to be able to link shapes directly to Jira issues, for example to see the status or the ID. Unfortunately, this is only possible limited to the URL to the Jira link.

C for customer gift

You read that right — here comes a sixth 'C'. As part of our research, we created both a shape library and a template for story maps and want to share them with you. If you're already using draw.io or would like to try out the story map online, contact us and we'll send you the templates for free:

Order a Draw.io template

StoriesOnBoard

Collaboration

StoriesOnBoard focuses entirely on digital, collaborative story maps. Unlimited story maps can be created within a workspace. The employees (“collaborators”) working on it can be defined for an individual map. You can share the map with the team via card or board comments.

The infrastructure runs on Microsoft Azure. In the Pro or Enterprise version, StoriesOnBoard offers additional security and control functions on.

Creativity

You can see the product's focus on story maps. For each map, you can define personas (with your own avatar), set card annotations and define a card color code. The cards are very flexible in their design. Markdown, emojis, attachments, comments, estimates, status — it leaves almost nothing to be desired. What also likes is the way of filtering. The cards are not simply displayed in a list, but are highlighted on the board. In this way, a conversation about a specific section of the map can take place in full focus.

Downsides are the lack of unique IDs per card and - but that is purely a matter of taste - the inability to change the somewhat dreary gray background.

Connectivity

StoriesOnboard offers a two-way integration of cards into the well-known issue trackers Jira, Trello, Azure DevOps and GitHub. With Slack, a well-known and widely used messaging app can also be integrated. Die full list of integrations You can find them in the link. A self-experiment with Trello has shown that the setup is easy and the synchronization works great. By the way, when you integrate, you also get the ID of the card in Issue Tracking Tools on the card in StoriesOnBoard.

Costs

StoriesOnBoard has four pricing plans, with the first three allowing a maximum of 40 editors. It should be mentioned that the number of viewers is unlimited in all plans. In the Basic plan, the 1st editor costs $19, each additional editor costs $9.

In the Standard Plan - the integrations are available from here - the first person costs $26, each additional $12. The Pro Plan provides additional security and control functions and in the Enterprise Plan (from 40 editors) a customer-specific contract is set up. The software can be tested free of charge for 14 days. Here You can see the details of the plans.

Conclusion

StoriesOnBoard is immediately noticeable when focusing on story maps. The strengths lie in particular in the many helpful functions for the exploratory phase of a story map. Thanks to the integration with the well-known issue tracking apps, the stories can also be easily transferred to the backlog. StoriesOnBoard also has a simplified status concept (Open, Ready, Doing, Done), which synchronizes with the integrated app. This means that progress can be checked directly on the story map.

Draft.io

Collaboration

Draft.io attaches great importance to sharing. Regardless of whether in the free or in the team version, every “draft” - that's what a blackboard is called - can be shared without restriction via an invitation or link. Not only to watch, but also to actively participate. The team version offers the option to create shared folders and manage access.

Creativity

When creating a new draft, you can choose from a variety of lovingly designed, ready-made templates (Program Board for PI Planning, Scrum Board, Impact Mapping, OKR Process, Business Model Canvas, etc.). This includes the story map. When preparing them, it is possible to start with sticky notes and convert them into cards over time with one click. A card can be annotated with dots, status, voting, links and ID. Unfortunately, it is not possible to assign the card to a person. In a remote workshop or similar, a person can take control of the position on the board via Screenshare. The others then only see this excerpt, but can continue to work on the board.

With the intelligent stacking function, stacks of cards can be created by simply dragging and dropping, which can then be moved as a whole.

It would be desirable to be able to add attachments and a description to the cards or to link to another place on the board in order to integrate additional details.

Addendum: Two weeks after publishing this article, Draft.io responded to our feedback and implemented the above request. Wow! We love that. The following video shows the use case:
“How to create a link to a given part of a draft”

Connectivity

In the Team Version The cards can be seamlessly integrated with Jira. Issues can be created directly in the draft or selected from the Jira backlog.
Other applications cannot be integrated.

Costs

Draft.io has the three plans Free, Pro and Team. In the free version, unlimited drafts can be created and shared. The limit is when creating a maximum of 500 objects (e.g. a card is an object). In the Pro version for EUR 8.33, this restriction is lifted and individual drafts can be protected with a password. The team version costs EUR 8.33 per user/month. Jira integration is included.

Conclusion

Draft.io takes a refreshing approach to pricing and creativity. For example, you can find the comment function on a card or in a higher-level notification area. There is a well-thought-out element called Junk Note, which can be placed anywhere on the draft.

The tool is ideal for story maps and, with integration into the widely used Jira, stories can be seamlessly reviewed during development. Moving multiple stories or entire activities works very smoothly thanks to zooming, selecting and the stacking function.

It would be great to share cards between drafts to display stories from the map directly on the Scrum Board.

Agile User Story Mapping for Jira

Collaboration

Agile User Story Mapping (AUSM) is an add-on for Jira. Once installed, a story map board is available for every project.
In this way, all project participants from Jira can also automatically contribute to the story map.

Creativity

User tasks (AUSM calls them steps) automatically display the epics of the project. Below you can see the stories that belong to the epic.
If you move a story to another epic, the epic link is automatically updated. AUSM also provides the user goals level.
This is implemented with its own IssueType “Goal”, which is only available in connection with the board. The goals can neither be created independently of the board nor searched using the filters.
The goals can be assigned to the personas you have created yourself. The created issues can be colored and edited directly from the board.
Depending on your wishes, the swim lanes can be organized according to the releases or sprints defined in the project.
A downside is the view of goals and steps. While some teams certainly work with epics as user tasks, in theory, user tasks are tasks that a user must complete in order to achieve a goal. The product itself supports the user in completing the task through implemented epics ('big story') and stories. It would therefore be desirable for the level of steps to be implemented in a similar way to the level of goals and to be independent of implementation. An example would be the goal “Send email” which, among other things, has the task “Enter email address”. Epics and stories from “Capture email” could be: Type in email address; paste from address book; autocomplete; CC and BCC;...

Connectivity

AUSM is in Atlassian Marketplace — available for both cloud and servers. As a result, the board is fully integrated into Jira but not available in alternative issue tracking apps.

Costs

The app is free for up to 10 users. After that, it costs 1.25 dollars per user. Starting at 100 users, the average price per user decreases continuously. The app can be tested free of charge for 30 days.

Conclusion

All in all, AUSM offers a good opportunity to present epics and stories from a backlog in two dimensions. Compared to Easy Agile user story maps, AUSM offers the goal level. In addition, the board is intuitive to use and well integrated into Jira. It would be desirable to be able to define the 'steps' — similar to the 'goals' — independently of the stories and epics.

Interested? We are happy to help!

We maintain our partner network very actively, which is why we are able to support you in evaluating, integrating and procuring all solutions. We would be happy to answer your open questions or provide you with an attractive offer for the tools described.

Get to know user story maps better as a method, or expand your skills.

Together with Infometis We support you with methodical use of user story maps! From the individual counseling/coaching, up to the training offered in the following formats at the Infometis Academy:

• How to User Story
  How can you get even more out of your user stories? We teach you many methods and techniques so that your product development is even closer to the needs of your customers.

Please also read the Infometis blog on the methodical use of user story maps.

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