Jira apps for agile teams

Picture this all-too-common scenario: Your teams have been working diligently across multiple departments. They've successfully developed an MVP following perfect agile practices. The burndown charts are beautiful. The collaboration was seamless. The code is clean, tested, and ready to ship.

There's just one small problem – when you release it to your users... crickets. No one uses it. No one cares.

Sound familiar? You're not alone.

The Build Trap: A Silent Killer of Agile Success

Many agile teams find themselves trapped in a cycle of building features that don't deliver real value to their customers. They've fallen into what product strategy expert Melissa Perri calls "the build trap" – focusing on outputs (like features shipped) rather than outcomes (like solving real customer problems).

As Charlie Hill, VP of Strategic Design at IBM, explains:

"The most important question for you to ask is, can you accomplish an outcome that a user would recognize as better than the other options available? And can you get it to that user before your competition does? Because if you can't, it's going to be a struggle. If you spend too much time measuring internal velocity, you risk falling in love with a very efficient process but losing sight of the market."

Understanding the Value Exchange System

At the heart of successful agile development lies a fundamental concept: the Value Exchange System.

It works like this:

1. On one side, customers have specific problems, wants, and needs
2. On the other side, businesses create products or services to resolve these problems
3. Customers realize value only when their problems are genuinely solved
4. Only then do they provide value back to the business through loyalty, revenue, and advocacy

This reciprocal relationship forms the foundation of customer-centric agile. When teams focus on solving real customer problems rather than just shipping features, they create a virtuous cycle benefiting both the customer and the business.

Why Traditional Agile Often Misses the Mark

Agile methodologies were born from a desire to be more responsive to change and deliver value faster. But somewhere along the way, many teams lost sight of the ultimate goal – delighting customers. They became more focused on:

• Sprint velocity over customer impact
• Story points over solved problems
• Feature completion over user satisfaction
• Process efficiency over market success

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, puts it perfectly:

"There are many ways to center a business. You can be competitor focused, you can be product focused, you can be technology focused, you can be business model focused... But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of day one vitality."

The Six Pillars of Customer-Centric Agile

To embrace truly customer-centric agile development, teams need to adopt these fundamental principles:

1. Empathy First

• Get out from behind your desk and observe customers in their natural environment
• Listen to their frustrations and celebrate their wins
• See the world through their eyes before attempting solutions

2. Outcomes Over Outputs

• Focus on the impact your features create, not just their completion
• Measure success by customer problems solved
• Ask "How does this improve our users' lives?" before "How fast can we ship it?"

3. Continuous Discovery

• Make learning about customers an ongoing process, not a one-time event
• Regularly conduct user interviews and analyze usage data
• Keep testing assumptions and validating decisions

4. Experimentation Mindset

• Embrace uncertainty and be willing to test assumptions
• Use prototypes and MVPs to validate ideas before full commitment
• Learn from failures as much as successes

5. Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Ensure everyone on the team has access to customer insights
• Break down silos between product, development, and user research
• Make customer understanding everyone's responsibility

6. Rapid Iteration

• Be prepared to pivot quickly based on customer feedback
• Maintain technical practices that enable fast response to learning
• Value adaptation over following a plan

Getting Started with Customer-Centric Agile

While the principles are straightforward, implementing them requires careful thought and systematic approach.

Begin by assessing your current state. Take time to understand how your team currently gathers customer insights. Look at your feature adoption rates and usage patterns. Most importantly, examine how you measure success - are you tracking outputs like velocity, or outcomes like customer impact?

Next, focus on building customer empathy across your entire team. Schedule regular customer conversations - aim for at least one per sprint. Create opportunities for team members from all functions to observe customers using your product in their natural environment. Make sharing customer insights a regular part of your agile ceremonies, not just something that happens in product meetings.

Finally, start adjusting your metrics to reflect your customer-centric focus. While velocity and story points have their place, they shouldn't be your primary measures of success. Begin tracking customer outcomes and impact. Monitor feature adoption and engagement. Pay attention to how your work affects customer satisfaction and retention.

Want to dive deeper into implementing these principles?

We've written a comprehensive guide that does just that and provides detailed frameworks for implementation.

In "Understanding Customer Value in Agile," you'll find practical techniques, real-world case studies, and step-by-step guides for transforming your agile practice. Each chapter builds on these foundational principles to help you create truly customer-centric development processes.

Get your free copy today.

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Picture yourself trying to assemble a complex piece of furniture without the visual instruction manual - just a long list of steps. Frustrating, right? That's exactly how many teams feel when working from a flat product backlog. They have lists of features and requirements, but they've lost sight of the complete customer journey.

That's where user story mapping comes in. It helps us see the forest before getting lost in the trees.

The Power of Narrative Flow in Product Discovery

User story mapping transforms how teams approach product discovery. Rather than diving straight into features, it helps you visualize the complete journey a customer takes with your product, from beginning to end. This focus on customer centricity ensures you're building features that truly matter.

As Jeff Patton, who pioneered user story mapping, explains, traditional flat backlogs are like trying to understand a book by reading a list of sentences in random order. Sure, all the content is there, but the story—the user's journey—gets lost.

"User story mapping is a facilitated, curated conversation that brings everyone along for the journey. It's an opportunity for the product manager to brain dump their insights (who is deep in this stuff day in, day out) and get it into the minds of the team who are about to deliver on it." - Nicholas Muldoon, Co-Founder and CEO, Easy Agile

Creating Your First User Story Map

Let's walk through creating a user story map for a streaming service like Netflix or Apple TV. We'll see how their teams might map out the user experience of watching a movie.

Step 1 - Start with the Big Picture

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Begin by identifying the major activities your users go through - what Jeff Patton calls the "backbone" or "narrative flow" of your story map. Think of these as the chapter titles in your user's story.

For our streaming service example, the backbone might look like this:

• Select movie
• Purchase movie
• Watch movie
• Review/recommend movie

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🎯 Team Exercise: Gather your team and ask, "What are the major steps our users take to accomplish their goal?" Write each step on a card or sticky note, arranging them left to right in chronological order.

Step 2 - Add User Tasks

Now comes the rich detail. Under each major activity, add the specific tasks users need to complete. These become your user stories.  The key is to maintain focus on user value rather than technical implementation.

In the above example, these could be your user stories for the "Select movie" activity:

• Free text search
• Browse by genre
• Browse by recent addition
• Browse by most popular
• Browse by most popular by genre
• Browse by recent addition by genre

💡 Pro Tip: Write these tasks from the user's perspective. Instead of "implement search functionality," write "search for specific movies."

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Step 3 - Master Backlog Prioritization

Here's where user story mapping truly shines compared to flat backlogs. You'll organize your stories both horizontally (in sequence) and vertically (by priority). This approach helps with both feature prioritization and sprint planning.

Horizontal: Organize stories left to right in the sequence users would naturally perform them. 

Vertical: Arrange stories from top to bottom in order of priority, by value to the user. You can identify the value through conversations with users, analytics on usage patterns, or another form of insight appropriate for your product.

Think of it like building a house. The foundation (must-haves) comes first, then the walls (should-haves), and finally the decorative touches (nice-to-haves).

Priority Framework: 

HIGH (Must have)

• Core functionality essential for basic user journey
• Critical user needs identified from research
• Example: Basic search, Movie playback, Payment processing

MEDIUM (Should have)

• Important features that enhance user experience
• Validated user desires from feedback
• Example: Genre filtering, Recommendations, Ratings display

LOW (Nice to have)

• Additional features for delight
• Potential future enhancements
• Example: Social sharing, Advanced recommendations, Multiple watch lists

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Step 4 - Identify Your Releases

With your map laid out, draw horizontal lines to slice your map into releases. Each slice should represent a complete, valuable user experience.

Facilitating User Story Mapping Sessions

Running an effective user story mapping session requires more than just following the steps above. Whether your team is co-located or distributed across time zones, here's how to make these sessions productive and engaging:

Pre-Session Checklist

• Invite the right people (product owner, developers, designers, subject matter experts)

• Prepare customer research insights and data 

• Set up physical or digital collaboration space

• Define clear session objectives 

• Schedule adequate time (typically 2-4 hours for initial mapping)

During-the-Session Checklist

• Start with customer context (share research findings, personas) 

• Keep focus on user's perspective 

• Document questions and assumptions 

• Take photos/screenshots of work in progress 

• Capture action items and decisions

User Story Mapping For Co-Located Teams

Make sure the physical space is well-equipped for the perfect user story mapping session.

• Large wall space or whiteboard
• Plenty of sticky notes in different colors
• Markers for everyone
• Space for team movement and discussion

User Story Mapping For Remote Teams

Many teams often need to conduct user story mapping sessions remotely. While the principles remain the same, the execution requires some additional consideration:

1. Digital Workspace:
   • Choose collaborative tools like Easy Agile TeamRhythm
   • Set up template beforehand
   • Ensure everyone has access and basic tool familiarity
2. Engagement Techniques:
   • Use smaller breakout rooms for detailed discussions
   • Leverage digital voting for prioritization
   • Use timer-based activities to maintain energy
   • Schedule shorter sessions with clear breaks
   • Record sessions for team members in different time zones

Making Remote User Story Mapping Work for You

During the pandemic, Lyft turned to Easy Agile TeamRhythm’s remote user story mapping to keep their teams connected and focused while working from home. This tool made it easy for their distributed teams to collaborate, visualize customer journeys, and stay on top of priorities—even with everyone apart.

The result? A 20% boost in efficiency and smoother, more aligned teamwork. It’s a great example of how the right tool can make remote work feel a lot less remote.

Ready to try it? Let’s map your team’s success with Easy Agile TeamRhythm!

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

1. "We're losing the big picture"

Solution: Keep your backbone visible at all times. Regularly step back and walk through the complete user journey.

2. "Technical discussions are derailing us"

Solution: Create a "parking lot" for technical discussions. Focus first on the user's journey, then tackle implementation details in separate sessions.

3. "Remote participants aren't engaging"

Solution: Use round-robin techniques to ensure everyone contributes. Create explicit opportunities for input from remote team members.

4. "Our map is becoming outdated"

Solution: Schedule regular review sessions. Make updating the map part of your sprint ceremonies.

Keeping Your Story Map Alive

Your user story map shouldn't be a one-time exercise that gets filed away. It should evolve as your understanding of users deepens. Keep it alive and relevant by:

1. Making it visible

• Display it prominently in your team space
• Keep it accessible in your digital tools
• Reference it in planning sessions

2. Updating regularly

• Add new insights from customer feedback
• Adjust priorities based on learnings
• Mark completed items
• Note changes in user needs or behavior

3. Using it for alignment

• Reference during sprint planning
• Share with stakeholders
• Use for onboarding new team members

Measuring Success

Finally, look for these indicators to know if your story mapping is effective. Special props to you and the team if you nail them all.

✓ Team members naturally reference the map during discussions 

✓ Customer feedback aligns with your prioritization 

✓ Releases deliver coherent user experiences 

✓ Reduced scope creep and feature bloat 

✓ Improved team alignment on priorities 

✓ Better sprint planning sessions

Remember, user story mapping isn't about creating a perfect document - it's about fostering better conversations about user needs and ensuring we're building the right things in the right order.

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Want to dive deeper into building customer-centric products? Download our free ebook "Understanding Customer Value in Agile" to learn:

• How to escape the "build trap" and focus on real customer outcomes
• Practical techniques for understanding your customers deeply
• Frameworks for capturing and acting on customer insights
• Step-by-step guidance for creating meaningful personas and journey maps
• A concrete 30-60-90 day plan to transform how your team understands and delivers customer value

Download your free copy here and start your journey toward truly customer-centric agile development.

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Weaving alignment and empathy into team dynamics can revolutionize software delivery. So why aren't we all doing that?

It's a real challenge for organizations with numerous teams contributing to complex software, to achieve real alignment and consensus on user needs. But it's one well worth pursuing. Striking a balance between alignment on business goals and customer empathy ensures that the software your teams are developing truly resonates with users and fulfills those business goals.

Why Alignment Matters in Agile Programs

Alignment is more than just goal setting across teams. It's about connecting workflows, acknowledging challenges, and crafting solutions that encompass everyone’s perspectives, including the needs of your users. As Tony Camacho shared on the Easy Agile Podcast:

"Alignment isn’t just about goals—it’s about understanding each other’s workflows, needs, and challenges to create solutions that work for everyone."

This comprehensive strategic alignment is crucial for steering teams in the same direction. In large enterprises, team alignment means that agile release trains can function cohesively, and strategic business goals are successfully translated across diverse teams and departments. Strong alignment empowers cross-functional teams to sustain momentum and unity at scale, even as the product roadmap evolves. For agile release trains, effective alignment means that everyone is doing their part, pulling in the same direction, and delivering successful software.  

Customer Empathy and User-Centric Development

Customer empathy is the cornerstone of aligning business goals with user needs and developing software that delivers a seamless user experience. It's about getting to know your users, their needs, and their experience with your product so that you can create better solutions for them.

"The key to meeting user needs is empathy. When teams deeply understand their users, every product decision naturally aligns with providing value."

Tony Comacho

This ethos fuels decision-making and design that prioritizes user needs and values over functional deliverables. It's great to build and release something, but not-so-great if nobody uses it.  Agile leaders who embed empathy within their teams cultivate a customer-driven culture, resulting in software solutions that address genuine challenges and delight their audience.

Empathy enhances the process of gathering requirements, conducting user testing, and embracing iterative design. Combined with effective agile program management, empathy aligns business goals with user expectations, and is a great way to improve engagement with your software and reduce churn, paving the way for successful software delivery and user retention.

Building Clarity for Effective Collaboration

Building impactful software at scale demands effective collaboration and clarity.

"Effective collaboration is rooted in clarity. Teams need to feel supported by having a shared vision and understanding of the product journey."

Tony Comacho

Cross-team alignment revolves around establishing a unified vision and setting clear goals and expectations across the agile release train. For enterprise agile solutions that support PI Planning and Product Roadmapping, upholding this clarity allows large teams to work independently yet cohesively, ensuring a targeted approach to addressing both business and user needs.

How to Achieve Agile Alignment at Scale

To encourage team alignment around user needs in your organization:

• Invest in User Research & Design: Start talking to your users; and keep talking to them. Implement user-focused design practices, gathering insights from users throughout the development stages to effectively align user needs and business goals.
• Share Vision and Goals: Regularly communicate with your teams about business objectives and user needs, ensuring they are central to your agile program.
• Use Alignment Tools and Frameworks: Leverage agile tools that help you track objectives and development milestones to ensure team alignment and cross-team collaboration. Make goals and priorities easily accessible for all your teams.
• Encourage Transparent Communication: Cultivate an environment where feedback crosses team boundaries, maintaining cross-team alignment and empathy.‍

The Benefits of Alignment and Empathy in Software Delivery

Better outcomes for your software start when business goals are aligned with user needs. Programs that place strategic agile alignment and customer empathy at the forefront, not only meet user expectations but improve the value they offer to their customers. With good agile program management, the outcome is a streamlined, effective agile release train that consistently delivers exceptional software solutions. Which is what we all want, right?

As you work towards better alignment in your agile program, nurturing empathy and clarity can unlock significant gains in satisfaction for your users and for your teams, which is great news for the overall success of your program.

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🎧 Want to hear more from Tony? Listen to The power of team alignment on the Easy Agile Podcast.