User Journey Map Working Group
This working group has been established to develop a strategic framework and supportive infrastructure for scalable, consistent development of user journey maps across the GitLab platform.
These maps will enable Product, UX, and Dev teams to understand the complete journey of customers and GitLab users as they discover, evaluate, adopt, and integrate our DevSecOps platform. By identifying friction points, opportunities for education, and moments that matter most to users, we will create seamless pathways that increase first orders, accelerate successful onboarding, and strengthen long-term retention across our customer base.
While this working group focuses on creating a structured foundation for journey maps, there are various initiatives ongoing related to the creation of maps that can be found in the UX Backlog User Journey Mapping issue.
Attributes
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Date Created | April 23, 2025 |
| Target Date | July 15, 2025 |
| Slack | #ujm-working-group (internal only) |
| Google Doc | User Journey Map Working Group Agenda (internal only) |
Business goals
This working group aims to:
- Establish how journey mapping contributes to GitLab’s business value, growth, monetization, and the company plan
- Establish a strategic framework for user journey mapping across GitLab
- Build an organizational infrastructure for journey mapping
- Operationalize teams around user journeys
- Enable cross-functional collaboration across user journeys
Business outcomes and exit criteria
- Define key terminology including: User journey, golden journey, journey map, and journey elevation/fidelity
=> 100%- Status: Complete
- Develop guidelines for various levels of journey elevation (macro, mid, micro)
=> 100%- Status: Complete
- Establish templates, methodologies, and best practices for journey documentation
=> 100%- Status: Complete; Templates, Documentation
- Create a centralized system for storing, accessing, and connecting journey maps
=> 75%- Status: We have reviewed various tooling and are exploring whether a specialized journey mapping tool is worth pursuing. In the meantime, we have set up a “Journey Mapping” team in Figma which includes templates and projects for various journey map elevations. Next, we need to document how to use this system in the handbook.
- Establish communication channels for journey insights and discoveries
=> 50%- Status: We have created the #gitlab-user-journeys slack channel and included its use in our best practices. Next, we need to tie it into the various issue templates.
- Create a structure for translating journey insights into strategic opportunities based on business impact and user value
=> 50%- Status: We have drafted an issue template for teams to utilize, currently under review. We are discussing whether a dedicated research issue template should be created for user journeys or whether we can utilize existing templates.
Roles and Responsibilities
| Working Group Role | Person | Title |
|---|---|---|
| Facilitator | Taurie Davis | Senior Manager of Product Design |
| Executive Stakeholder | Valerie Karnes | Director of Product Design |
| Member | Emily Sybrant | Product Design Manager, Monetization |
| Member | Paige Cordero | Senior Product Manager, Growth |
| Member | Jessica Kane | Senior Manager of UX Research. |
| Member | Ben Leduc-Mills | Staff UX Researcher |
| Member | John Hope | Senior Manager of Engineering, Core Development |
| Member | Suzanne Selhorn | Staff Technical Writer |
Last modified July 3, 2025: Update file user-journey-map.md (
5e037d7f)
