The Inception Deck
Speaking of getting everyone on the same page, before you create a story map the Inception Deck is a great tool from ThoughtWorks for communicating high level goals without going into the nitty-gritty. Using this tool, you’ll discuss what’s in scope, what’s not in scope, some technical architecture and more. I used this recently with a team and we found that everyone had a slightly unique take on the goals of the project. Now we all know what we’re building and why.