Story Mapping Software For Jira Cloud and Jira Server

Powerful story mapping solution for Jira projects

storiesonboard for jira

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Save money by only paying per editor

Team members can join and comment for free

No need to buy licenses for all Jira users, only for users who actually do story mapping.

Supported versions: Jira Cloud and Jira Server (6.1 and higher)

User story mapping solutions for your Jira project

Start planning from scratch

  • Three-level user story mapping for an effective product design

  • Fast story writing featureslet you collect user stories tremendously easy

  • Add unlimited details, attachments or comments to user stories

story map feature for jira
collaboration around a story map for jira

Involve team members

  • Use the intuitive brainstorming mode to get all valuable ideas

  • Viewers can join to the workspace in real-time and can leave comments for free

  • User story maps are visual aid for non-technical stakeholders

Create user personas

  • Boost visuality and team's engagement with user personas

  • Create a compelling BIO, add details for a better understanding

  • Assign personas to epics and visualize user journeys

persona on a story map for jira

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Join teams who make their Jira backlogs visual

Two way sync makes it an easy choice no matter what engineering or development team prefers.

Daniel Swid

Agile Engeneering & Customer Innovation

storiesonbard quote marks

Seamless backlog management for Jira Cloud and Jira Server

Hierarchy sync

  • Integrate the user story map to JIRA project with just a few clicks

  • The levels on the story map will be synchronized to epics and user stories

  • Create versions on the story map, they are synchronized too

hierarchy synchronization between story map and jira
jira backlog synchronization with story map

Synced details

  • Descriptions and story points are mirrored and updated

  • Create easy-to-understand specifications

  • Track current iteration with real-time updated user story status

Always ready for the change

  • It's super easy to insert new stories in the middle of the backlog

  • Drag tasks between epics or releases with one movement

  • Use it to present the project's status

release planning with a story map for jira

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Effortless iteration planning for JIRA

I love how easy it is to build out and arrange/rearrange a story map. The navigation features are very easy to pick up.

James Childs

Scrum Master

Visual iterations planning for your Jira projects

Organize your short-term and long-term plans

  • Schedule versions smoothly, arrange them by drag and drop

  • Don't let the dev team's board overloaded, push user stories to JIRA version by version

  • Preview what the next month or quarter look like

iteration planning for jira in storiesonboard with a story map
agile framework release planning for jira

Implement your story map into your agile framework

  • Planning versions is tremendously easy by arranging user stories by dragging and dropping

  • Sync version structure and version details to JIRA project

  • Ongoing project? Import JIRA backlog with just a few clicks

story mapping playbook

FREE Story Mapping Playbook

All leaked best practices in one place

50 handpicked hints on

· Discovering project goals

· Mapping the user journey

· Prioritizing user stories

Bonus materials included

· 100 user stiory map examples

· Templates for specs

· Useful articles

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Start free trial and get free Story mapping eBook!

New to story mapping?

Learn how to create story maps in JIRA projects

You'll easily find plenty of valuable education materials on the net, but let me summarize the story mapping method in 5 short steps.

First off, user story mapping is a visual product planning method, that is originally designed for white boards or office walls. It is very intuitive so it's easy to learn for non-technical participants – and involving them delivers additional value to a design process.

Thanks to online tools, the process moved to virtual white boards and can be integrated to a JIRA project.

STEP 1 - Build the story map's backbone

User story mapping expends a lot of effort focusing on the end user, so you need to frame the problem and the user's goal(s).

What are the main requirements that need to be satisfied using the product?

Let's write down these goals in a narrative flow, if it's possible. For example, you're designing an online accommodation platform, where visitors can find, compare offers and book a room. Our user would find hotels, then she/he would choose one and book a room.

story mapping intro

STEP 2 - Build the story map's backbone

Now we have the product backbone, let's find out how to solve some steps. You don't need to think in features, just write down the user stories – e.g. “as a visitor I'd like to land on a clear, easy-to-understand website”.

Try to write short/smart user stories from ideas, e.g. “basic landing page” or “responsive website”, etc.

All the online story mapping tools offer a description section, so you can add notes and useful thoughts to a card. Moreover it can be used when specifying user stories or tasks. If you didn't involve a brainstorming team previously, now you should definitely do so. Remember, the more participants, the more ideas. To keep the brainstorming team focused, you can restrict ideation to a single goal or step.

build a story map's backbone for jira

STEP 3 - Prioritize user stories on the story map

You didn't need to concentrate on priority in the previous step. Now you should evaluate user stories which deliver more value or which are easy to develop. Of course, you can use your own prioritization method, or discuss it with the stakeholders.

Express priority order on the story map, and place high priority cards above others.

Continuing with our example: “basic landing page” ranked higher than “responsive landing page” and “highlighting promotions” has the lowest priority.

priorizite on a story map for jira

STEP 4 - Slice the story map into JIRA versions

Prioritization gave you some guidance on where to start, but it's just a half-baked solution to schedule a dev process. You need to slice the backlog horizontally into versions. Frame the Minimum Viable Product by moving cards into the first version. Check completeness by retelling the narrative flow with the user stories.

For example: user enters the basic landing page -» search hotels by name -» filter offers by date -» rearrange results by price, etc... Can the user reach their goal? If the answer is yes, you don't need to add more items to the first release. The next step is to group user stories around working features and schedule the subsequent versions.

jira version story map

STEP 5 - Push user stories to Jira

As I mentioned previously, doing the story mapping online provides robust opportunities to integrate your story map to Jira. Top-level cards can be synced as epics, and user stories remain the same in Jira after setting up the integration.

According to the backlog size or the product need you can link goals to epics in mid-size projects and sync steps with epics in larger projects. In addition you can send the backlog release by release, so you can keep the JIRA project clean. Then you can break user stories into tasks in the issue tracker tool.

how to sync a story map with jira

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Related content for story mapping for Jira projects

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Involve customers to create better products

Share project with your customers by inviting them to the story map. Customers get an intuitive view of the project and they can leave comments.

Learn more →

Save time on creating reports

Open the always up-to-date status reports. After inviting executives to the backlog, they can access the real-time updated status reports.

Learn more →

All you need to know about JIRA structure sync

Comparing two-level and one-level structure sync to make sure your hierarchy in Jira is translated correctly on your story map.

Learn more →

Start 14-day FREE trial

Start free trial and get free Story mapping eBook!