planning — the story map
The story map
The map is two-dimensional. The Epics — the activities — sit across the top as columns. Each column is a phase of the person's experience. Underneath each Epic, the backbones from the Epic kickoff appear as cards: the scenes within the activity. Drawn horizontally across the map, slices group cards that ship together. Each slice is a release.
Drawing the stripes is the slicing decision. There is no separate slicing event. The map is the slicing — looking at the full grid, the trio and stakeholders decide together which cards ship as release 1, release 2, release 3.
🟢 Release 1 — walking skeleton · 🟠 Release 2 — useful · 🔵 Release 3 — polished
Goal: Reduce Gal's grading session from 47 minutes to under 15 minutes
| Activity | Sees results | Calculates & marks | Reviews & corrects | Submits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🟢 R1 | All 28 students visible, MCQ scores auto-computed | Per-student marking pane, no tab switching | Scroll back, edit a score | Submit-to-school, basic confirmation |
| 🟠 R2 | Filter, sort by name or score | Rubric-based marking templates | Bulk recompute when rubric changes | Receipt with school timestamp |
| 🔵 R3 | Visual indicators, missing data | Side-by-side comparison | Annotation history | Class-level summary attached |
This is the map for Gal's grading workflow. Looking at it, the team can see the entire shape of the work — and where Gal's afternoon changes first.