What problem does it solve? Flat backlogs lose the big picture: a one-dimensional prioritized list of stories hides who the user is, what journey they take, and how the pieces fit together, making it hard to carve a coherent MVP or plan releases around outcomes. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Story Map Construction: Guides building a two-dimensional map with a backbone of activities and tasks in narrative order (left-to-right) and priority stacked top-to-bottom, using verb-phrase cards. - Release Slicing & MVP Definition: Slices the map horizontally into a walking-skeleton MVP and outcome-anchored release roadmap, ensuring every release tells a complete user journey. - Workshop Facilitation & Pitfall Avoidance: Provides a five-step workshop flow (frame, map breadth-first, explore, distill backbone, slice) plus Patton's five common mistakes and a quick application checklist. - Use Case: A product team with a 200-item flat backlog uses this skill to run a mapping workshop, lay out the user's journey end-to-end, and slice a minimal first release that still delivers a complete story. ## Quick Start Ask Claude to help you build a user story map for your product or feature and slice a walking-skeleton MVP from it.
