leanGears vs. StoriesOnBoard

As mentioned earlier, we also use StoriesOnBoard to create other processes (customer and employee journey). We use the swim lanes to differentiate between measures, tools and processes and working with them is very easy and understandable for this purpose.

Less easy is the use of context, i.e. when one part of a story map depends on another story map. This cannot be avoided (at least for us) to avoid creating redundancy (and the risk of creating different stages). At appropriate places, we refer to the other map in the title.

• User role management
• Jira integration
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Filtering by personas

• Switching the view to a vertical mode (easier to scroll).
• Better availability of information on user story mapping.
• Possibility to link to activities and steps from other maps (Context).

StoriesOnBoard works really well; all features are well thought through. It could look a bit fresher, although the new updated dashboard is already much better than it was.

The only other competitor we looked at was cardboardit.com. Both had solid functionality, but StoriesOnBoard was more user-friendly and quick to learn and use in our opinion.

• StoriesOnBoard (and story mapping in general) creates a low-cost visual method of aligning on high-level business and technical requirements early in a project and provides an ongoing reference as the project progresses. Having this alignment is critical for the later stages of the project.