There’s always far more to do than time to do it, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed or spend time on less important tasks. In this episode, Jason Moore and Ephie Risho tackle this challenge head-on with a system called the personal kanban. At the time of this recording, Ephie had just come through a time when he had far more on his plate than time and was losing steam on everything. Revisiting these ideas and the book revitalized him and brought far more productivity to the rest of his week.

The two key principles of Kanban are visualizing your work and limiting your work-in-progress. Doing these two things alone can make a massive difference in how well you manage your time. This episode covers the first half of the book Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry. 

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The UX Engineer role ensures the software has top quality, consistent experiences. UX and UI diverge in this podcast, where Jason Moore and Ephie Risho dig into the depths with two special guests. UX covers the user flows and experiences, whereas UI is focused more on making everything look and feel seamless.

Special guests Matthew and Cody discuss how they got into the field of UI design, what is most important in larger and smaller organizations, and some of the industry's newest changes. The role of the person looking over the design system may be different from that of a UX designer, but they must work together diligently to create one experience when building top-notch software.

This interview is lighthearted, fun, and chock full of good insights into design systems, UX engineering, UI, and how it all fits together in enterprise software experiences.

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How do user story map tools work for large companies building enterprise software? In this episode, Jason Moore and Ephie Risho finish their five-part series on Jeff Patton’s book User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product. 

Topics covered include building deep, shared understanding, working with personas, using minimum viable product cycles to the best effect, prioritization of opportunities, validated learning, Design Thinking best practices, Lean product cycles, and different ideas for collaboration.

Learn about how stories are like Asteroids, and as usual, hear Ephie and Jason’s stories and experiences as they interact with the rich content of this timeless treasure.

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In part three, Ephie and Jason dig deeper into Jeff Patton’s book User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product. As they cover chapters 10-13, they delve deeper into more examples and stories to flesh out the practice of using story maps to guide the entire product development process, from early discovery to breaking down big efforts into smaller chunks.

Breaking down a large epic, or opportunity, into sprint-sized rocks can be challenging but is completely achievable with the right tool set. Selecting the right opportunity from a large backlog can also be extremely difficult, and Jeff gives some handy tools and frameworks to help guide that process using an Opportunity Matrix. 

As usual, Ephie and Jason sprinkle in some of their stories and experiences over the years, encouraging the listener to use these powerful tools in practical ways to improve product development.

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Way out West there is this fella by the name of Jeff Patton. At least, that was the handle his lovin’ parents gave him. But we just call him the User Story Mapping Dude. Now, this dude was no stranger to product development. Some might even say, when it comes to story mapping, well, he wrote the book. 

And as it was, two big fans of his were doing a podcast series on that said book, and decided to take a roadtrip to interview him in person. Those two fans were fellas from Montana by the names of Jason Moore and Ephie Risho. When they finally did record that podcast, it was magic to behold, full of insights and new stories neither of them had ever heard before. And that’s the story we bring to you in this here podcast.

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Story mapping in tech companies of all sizes can have a significant and immediate positive influence. Join Ephie and Jason as they dig into Jeff Patton’s book User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product. As they cover chapters 4-9, they delve deeper into the practical application of user story mapping, emphasizing the importance of a cohesive narrative that reflects user goals and experiences. 

They will explore the concept of creating release plans from story maps, enabling teams to deliver incremental value to users. They also discuss techniques for managing dependencies, handling constraints, and adapting the story map based on changing priorities. 

Story maps are critical and valuable tools for facilitating communication between teams, stakeholders, and customers, and Ephie and Jason cover Jeff’s examples as well as give some of their own examples and use cases for this powerful, collaborative tool.

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Shared documents do not equal shared understanding. Rather than sharing a document, teams need to work with visuals like whiteboards and sticky notes in order to build true shared understanding. One core tool that is invaluable in charting out users’ needs and what product should be built is story mapping. 

Join Ephie and Jason as they dig into Jeff Patton’s book User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product. In this episode, some of Jeff’s great examples and stories come to light, including a number of personal interactions Jason and Ephie have had with Jeff over the years. This is a foundational concept that anyone working in product development needs to understand in order to build the right thing for the right user, drive better outcomes, and thus have a greater impact.

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Our smartphones have become our core computer for ongoing daily tasks. Even when sitting at a desk with multiple screens on a powerful computer, some tasks are quicker and easier on a mobile device. What are some examples of good uses of this powerful device that’s always at hand?

Join Jason & Ephie as they discuss the top mobile apps they use, and why. As an experiment, they each took a screenshot of their smartphone home screen and sent it to each other to pick apart. In this light-hearted episode, learn about mobile device good and bad practices, what apps belong on the top, and what some of the frustrations and pitfalls can be.

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At the heart of knowledge workers’ jobs is the need to do critical thinking and ideation around complex concepts. If the end goal is known clearly, moving from point A to B can be a project management task. But a more interactive, innovative approach is needed when B is fuzzy or unknown, and there are many ways to get there.

Introducing Gamestorming, activities that engage people, just like a game, in brainstorming a problem and lead to consensus and better ideas than solo ideation. What activity is most relevant to the problem? It depends on what the need is. There are hundreds of possibilities, although a handful rise to the top in the field of UX.

Join Ephie and Jason as they talk about their experiences using this fantastic resource to aid in product discovery practices for your organization. 

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Interviewing for a UX role requires providing solid case studies showcasing your work level. But what should be included to make a case study shine, and what are some of the pitfalls? Join Ephie & Jason as they dive into their real-world experiences with interviewing and what makes a solid case study or portfolio stand out. 

This episode goes into depth on case study structure and the most essential aspects. It also looks at the other components of successful interviewing—specifically, the process and what kinds of exercises could be helpful.

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