Jeff Patton - Author and Coach, Jeff Patton & Associates - airfocus Product Hero

Who is Jeff Patton?

Jeff Patton is a product manager with a multidisciplinary mindset. What sets him apart from other product managers is his holistic understanding of products. His development approach blends strategy with lean user experiences and agile delivery practices. 

Jeff’s unique outlook is partly due to his experience in product and software design. It’s what led Jeff to develop a user-centered design technique and sync it with agile requirements.  

Drawing from his vast experience, Jeff authored the book User Story Mapping, in which he covers one of his custom user-centric development techniques. Since he loves to write almost as much as he loves to build great products, Jeff also regularly writes articles and essays. 

He works as an independent consultant (you can find him at Jeff Patton & Associates). But he also provides training programs and coaching sessions. As you’d expect, Jeff’s teaching style is anything but ordinary. He employs drawings and storytelling to engage his audience and make his ideas stick. 

What is Jeff Patton known for?

Jeff Patton is best known for developing the concept of story mapping, which he introduced in 2005. More recently, he detailed the method in the highly-acclaimed book ‘User Story Mapping’. Follow this link for a 2-page PDF download containing the highlights from Patton’s book. 

Although his talent as a product manager is what initially got him so well-known, most colleagues in the industry know him thanks to his methodology and coaching career. 

In time, teaching started to occupy more and more of Jeff’s energy. He says he’s genuinely passionate about building great products, but that he also has an aching desire to help others do the same. No surprises then that Jeff can often be found traveling the world, participating in international conferences — and that he’s designed so many coaching programs. Keep an eye on the events tab of the Jeff Patton & Associates website, and maybe you can see him in the flesh, too.

What is story mapping?

Story mapping is a concept method developed by Jeff Patton. Building on insights from his design background, Patton came up with this framework to guarantee that final products meet user needs. 

In essence, story mapping involves walking through a variety of user stories (a.k.a wants and needs) to understand them better. It’s a step-by-step visualization of the actions a user must take inside an app to reach their desired result or outcome. The various scenarios help development teams to get a clear, unified perspective on their users’ experiences and to prioritize features accordingly. 

Find out more about story mapping, here.