6 ms·

Show HN: Featmap – a user story mapping tool built with Go, React and TypeScript

Gys 7y ago
Looks very nice. I would use Trello for this normally as it does the job good enough. This seems like a more specific service. I am curious how many ppl will choose this instead and for what reasons.
- trastentrasten 7y ago
  Trello is often good enough. With Featmap, I wanted to create the user story mapping tool that is juuust perfect for my use cases. Hopefully, other people will also find it useful!
chrisMyzel 7y ago
Awesome - it happened I was exactly thinking about a tool like this when on a long meeting call today. I have clients that refuse to use another tool, refuse another sign up in their email account . In the same time those clients are mostly chaotic to unorganized and we tend to repeat the same points over and over again in the course of a year until all points are fulfilled (web platform dev work). This tool seems like the just Trello enough for ONE single view - no explanation to give - will try this from next week's meeting call on
- trastentrasten 7y ago
  Cool, let me know how it went with the client!
- cultofmetatron 7y ago
  yikes, sounds like a high maintenence client. I hope you're charging appropriately!!
sphix0r 7y ago
Thanks! Seems very useful and clean enough to inform stake holders and the entire team.
- trastentrasten 7y ago
  My idea is that the tool can be used to quickly communicate product vision and current progress to the team or external stake holders. I can also imagine teams using it as their primary tracking tool, if the company is small enough. If you end up using it, please let me know how I can improve it and how you are using it.
latchkey 7y ago
So... the reason why Pivotal Tracker is still my favorite tool is because most PM's want to know when a feature is going to be done. With PT, developers assign points to stories and the 3 week average (customizable) is what makes a velocity. If velocity is 20, then 20 points worth of stories fit into an iteration (week). Points include testing, so that isn't cut out, like with sprints. As a PM, I can get developers to point stories out for a few weeks worth of iterations. If I need to move stories around, I can do that easily and I can see how moving things around affects 'when it will be available'. If I was going to use another tool, I'd want PT's 'velocity' as a base feature for sure.
- cj 7y ago
  I don't think tools like this are meant to replace Pivotal (or Jira, or whatever you use for tracking Sprint stories/tickets). Roadmapping (or in this case, user story mapping) is usually done independently from Sprint planning as a way to develop and share the product roadmap so that your team can prioritize Jira/Pivotal tickets or whatever your team uses for tracking Sprint tasks.
  - latchkey 7y ago
    Yes, Pivotal model (disclosure, I worked at Pivotal/CloudFoundry for a bit) just uses sticky notes and they do this in an 'inception'. https://content.pivotal.io/blog/inception-knowing-what-to-build-and-where-you-should-start https://content.pivotal.io/blog/inception-knowing-what-to-bu... Sticky notes are something more dynamic and hand writing things out makes you think more about things than just filling out boxes on a screen. It also allow you to iterate quickly and just toss the ideas you don't like into a corner. Those stickies turn into 8 point (or unpointed) stories, put into Tracker, which then get broken down into smaller stories which can be discussed (iteration planning meetings) tasked out and worked on. So yea... I guess if someone made me use a tool like this over simple sticky notes, I'd probably be really frustrated at the end of the day.
- Redsquare 7y ago
  "If velocity is 20, then 20 points worth of stories fit into an iteration" -> When was software engineering so regimented, predictable and precise. This sort of mentality treats engineers as robotic and is a cancer in the industry currently.
KhalPanda 7y ago
I'm curious, is there a featmap for featmap? :)
- trastentrasten 7y ago
  The most requsted feature is integration with GitHub. What do you think it is missing?
  - KhalPanda 7y ago
    Oh, I don't think anything is missing. Just seems like the perfect case of a product/tool you would be able to "dogfood". Good work!
plexiglass 7y ago
Can't wait to try this! I used miro.com in the past but it has a paywall. Congrats on the launch.
- trastentrasten 7y ago
  Thanks! I know that Featmap is not unique in the space, there are a lot of similar products. What I was missing was a free and open sourced tool with just the right feature set. After a couple of months of ambivalence, I decided to scratch my own itch. Would love to get your feedback once you've tried it.
umpc 7y ago
Just a thought: I tried using the demo on mobile and it was easy to accidentally reorder/reorganize tasks. Perhaps place an undo button nearby or somehow decrease touch sensitivity without removing functionality?
- trastentrasten 7y ago
  To be honest, I haven't paid much attention to mobile - mostly because I am nearly always on a desktop. Obviously a large screen is better when you are making changes to a big story map, but I get your point. Thanks for the detailed feedback, it really means a lot to me.
ReD_CoDE 7y ago
I think Featmap is good and I think if you want to work on some ideas that have the potential to become startups I have some ideas in mind. Do you want hear them?
topicseed 7y ago
What's the license on the code?

Gys 7y ago

Looks very nice. I would use Trello for this normally as it does the job good enough. This seems like a more specific service. I am curious how many ppl will choose this instead and for what reasons.

trastentrasten 7y ago
Trello is often good enough. With Featmap, I wanted to create the user story mapping tool that is juuust perfect for my use cases. Hopefully, other people will also find it useful!

chrisMyzel 7y ago

Awesome - it happened I was exactly thinking about a tool like this when on a long meeting call today. I have clients that refuse to use another tool, refuse another sign up in their email account . In the same time those clients are mostly chaotic to unorganized and we tend to repeat the same points over and over again in the course of a year until all points are fulfilled (web platform dev work). This tool seems like the just Trello enough for ONE single view - no explanation to give - will try this from next week's meeting call on

trastentrasten 7y ago
Cool, let me know how it went with the client!
cultofmetatron 7y ago
yikes, sounds like a high maintenence client. I hope you're charging appropriately!!

sphix0r 7y ago

Thanks! Seems very useful and clean enough to inform stake holders and the entire team.

trastentrasten 7y ago
My idea is that the tool can be used to quickly communicate product vision and current progress to the team or external stake holders. I can also imagine teams using it as their primary tracking tool, if the company is small enough. If you end up using it, please let me know how I can improve it and how you are using it.

latchkey 7y ago

So... the reason why Pivotal Tracker is still my favorite tool is because most PM's want to know when a feature is going to be done. With PT, developers assign points to stories and the 3 week average (customizable) is what makes a velocity. If velocity is 20, then 20 points worth of stories fit into an iteration (week). Points include testing, so that isn't cut out, like with sprints. As a PM, I can get developers to point stories out for a few weeks worth of iterations. If I need to move stories around, I can do that easily and I can see how moving things around affects 'when it will be available'. If I was going to use another tool, I'd want PT's 'velocity' as a base feature for sure.

cj 7y ago
I don't think tools like this are meant to replace Pivotal (or Jira, or whatever you use for tracking Sprint stories/tickets). Roadmapping (or in this case, user story mapping) is usually done independently from Sprint planning as a way to develop and share the product roadmap so that your team can prioritize Jira/Pivotal tickets or whatever your team uses for tracking Sprint tasks.
- latchkey 7y ago
  Yes, Pivotal model (disclosure, I worked at Pivotal/CloudFoundry for a bit) just uses sticky notes and they do this in an 'inception'. https://content.pivotal.io/blog/inception-knowing-what-to-build-and-where-you-should-start https://content.pivotal.io/blog/inception-knowing-what-to-bu... Sticky notes are something more dynamic and hand writing things out makes you think more about things than just filling out boxes on a screen. It also allow you to iterate quickly and just toss the ideas you don't like into a corner. Those stickies turn into 8 point (or unpointed) stories, put into Tracker, which then get broken down into smaller stories which can be discussed (iteration planning meetings) tasked out and worked on. So yea... I guess if someone made me use a tool like this over simple sticky notes, I'd probably be really frustrated at the end of the day.
Redsquare 7y ago
"If velocity is 20, then 20 points worth of stories fit into an iteration" -> When was software engineering so regimented, predictable and precise. This sort of mentality treats engineers as robotic and is a cancer in the industry currently.

KhalPanda 7y ago

I'm curious, is there a featmap for featmap? :)

trastentrasten 7y ago
The most requsted feature is integration with GitHub. What do you think it is missing?
- KhalPanda 7y ago
  Oh, I don't think anything is missing. Just seems like the perfect case of a product/tool you would be able to "dogfood". Good work!

plexiglass 7y ago

Can't wait to try this! I used miro.com in the past but it has a paywall. Congrats on the launch.

trastentrasten 7y ago
Thanks! I know that Featmap is not unique in the space, there are a lot of similar products. What I was missing was a free and open sourced tool with just the right feature set. After a couple of months of ambivalence, I decided to scratch my own itch. Would love to get your feedback once you've tried it.

umpc 7y ago

Just a thought: I tried using the demo on mobile and it was easy to accidentally reorder/reorganize tasks. Perhaps place an undo button nearby or somehow decrease touch sensitivity without removing functionality?

trastentrasten 7y ago
To be honest, I haven't paid much attention to mobile - mostly because I am nearly always on a desktop. Obviously a large screen is better when you are making changes to a big story map, but I get your point. Thanks for the detailed feedback, it really means a lot to me.

ReD_CoDE 7y ago

I think Featmap is good and I think if you want to work on some ideas that have the potential to become startups I have some ideas in mind. Do you want hear them?

topicseed 7y ago

What's the license on the code?