
Show HN: Featmap – a user story mapping tool built with Go, React and TypeScript - trastentrasten
https://github.com/amborle/featmap
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chrisMyzel
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

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trastentrasten
Cool, let me know how it went with the client!

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latchkey
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.

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Redsquare
"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.

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latchkey
Actually, no. It is far less robotic in practice and works quite well because
once the schedule is better known and controlled, developers can go home on
time every day. The whole crunch mode thing is effectively eliminated.

Pivots get into work at the same time, work together all day and then get to
leave at the exact sane normal 8 hour work day. Every single day. Sounds like
a great job to me.

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Redsquare
20 'points' (whatever they are) last week has zero bearing on what will be
accomplished this week, or next or in 6 months time. Vanity metrics. Your
silently forcing them to be a feature factory and act in a consistent robotic
fashion no matter what the problem at hand is. I bet your tech debt velocity
is increasing weekly.

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latchkey
This is why velocity is a 3 week average of points and can be overridden in
the tool to show people who are out on vacation/sick. The tool dynamically
updates to show what stories make it into an iteration as well.

The whole idea is not to force people into a box. It is to just give PM's a
way to plan the future. Obviously, things can change so it isn't some forceful
thing at all.

Don't knock it until you've tried it. I had an opinion like you and then I
went and worked in this system and it totally changed my mind.

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

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trastentrasten
The most requsted feature is integration with GitHub. What do you think it is
missing?

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KhalPanda
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!

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Gys
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.

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trastentrasten
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!

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umpc
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?

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trastentrasten
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.

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topicseed
What's the license on the code?

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sphix0r
Thanks! Seems very useful and clean enough to inform stake holders and the
entire team.

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trastentrasten
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.

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ReD_CoDE
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?

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

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trastentrasten
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.

