I've had opportunity to work/meet/connect with a number of people & companies alike over the past few years. Learning, Adapting, Changing. Creating ideas & eventually creating tangible things. Understanding differences between Intrapreneurship & Entrepreneurship. Learning how software engineering really works. Learning about dependencies and decisions that should be made before starting any project. Mostly through trial & error. Fail fast and fail forward as they say.
So, whether you are new to the field or an expert, here are a few tools that I've learned over the years that may help. (In no particular order.)
Understanding operational needs, restrictions and dealing with stakeholders.
Start by defining all individuals who sit within the value chain. This should include potential users. Who are the people you envision benefiting the most from this product or service?
Next, create a set of questions based on what you’d like to learn. Most importantly, look for questions that understand users needs. Setup times to meet said users, and if possible – do a “day in the life” for each. This will give an overview of their pain points, and what matters to them.
After we have a good understanding of the problems we are solving, then we can look at how could we offer a product/service around this. What are the cycles/processes they do on a daily basis?
Thinking about the cycles of use for a product or service can be useful in understanding the life-cycle/journey. How long is the intended use phase initially for the product or service? How can it change? Continue asking “What’s next.”
Doing this for multiple cycles we get an understanding of the journeys for different parts of the product/service after use.
Developing User Stories
User stories are meant to create conversation around a piece of functionality that needs to happen. I find Gherkin to be extremely useful.
Feature: Descriptive text of what is desired to realize a named business value. As an explicit system actor, I want to gain some beneficial outcome which furthers the goal.
As a <role>, I want <goal/desire> so that <benefit>
Scenario: Some determinable business situation
Given: Some precondition
And some precondition
When some action by the actor
And some other action
Then some testable outcome is achieved
And something else we can check happens too
Scenario: Another similar scenario related to the feature.
Sprint Planning
Sprint Planning is a time-boxed event that the entire team participates in. A sprint goal is an objective set for the sprint that can be met through the implementation of the Product Backlog.
Key questions answered during sprint planning- What are we going to do in the sprint & How are we going to do the sprint?
An ordered backlog is then reviewed & stories are placed into a sprint by the development team. Sub-tasks are created for each user stories by the development team.
Understanding how to prioritize a road-map
Road mapping process is usually with the entire team – Based on priority inputs from the PO/PM, the team evaluates the project ideas and generated epic backlog to provide initial “order of magnitude” estimates. The risks are identified, and assumptions are laid out. The PM then reassesses the risks, estimates, and potential business value. This reassessment results in revised priorities through collaboration with the other stakeholders.
We can understand the value-cost of a project by measuring value points across capabilities/features. As all projects have a financial aspect to them, be it increased revenue, cost of entry into a new market, regulatory exposure, or something similar.
1. Understanding the organizations “value language”
2. Allocating value points across capabilities/features
3. Track value vs cost for each iteration
Navigating complex structure and non-technical stakeholders
The start of any engagement is stakeholder mapping. This allows us to understand their perspectives and create narratives to help them feel invested. This could include; investors, employees, internal stakeholders, development & design teams. Once identified, strategies would need to be created for how to involve them throughout the process, from co-creation to keeping them engaged. This may include Internal & External stakeholders.
- What matters to them most?
- What keeps them up at night?
- How do they problem solve?
Building off these perspectives, we can then develop a narrative/conversation with them and understand when to include them in discussion. Perhaps ideating back n forth or show an early prototype.
Dealing with project ambiguity and uncertain environments
Discovery allows an organization the chance to explore a problem area in more detail. This reduces uncertainty & risk. Ideally, these should be regular events in a product life-cycle to allow organizations to rapidly recognize and adapt to changing needs. Problems may be solved with many potential solutions and implementations. Choosing one solution from the field without understanding its value to customers is usually a costly assumption.
Steps to add a new enhancement or feature
Before starting to build the enhancement – The idea/enhancement should be defined on a business level. Items such as - What is the elevator pitch, Business model canvas, Product strategy, and a Product canvas. Then start the planning phase.
Step 1: Planning
· Break the user stories into smaller parts
· Gather information related to user stories
· Prepare plan, time and cost to carry out the work
Step 2: Analysis
· Capture stories
· Prioritize stories
· Define iteration
Step 3: Plan
· Breakdown tasks
· Test scenario preparation for each task
· Regression Automation
Step 4: Execution
· Coding
· Testing
· Automated Test Cases
· Sprint Activities
Step 5: Packaging
· Demo’s and reviews
· Develop stories based on customer needs
· Process improvement at end of iteration
Step 6: Close
· Pilot launch to test product
· Give Training
· Product Launch
· Product Support
Assessing an opportunity/feature with a team
Irrespective of whether we have a solid team up-to-date with all topics, the success of creating new products/services hinges on many factors. Communication is a vital factor.
- Any problem can be made clearer with a picture, this allows us to get a good understanding – we can then envision the tiniest details and all the decisions we make.
- We often tend to focus on implementation details, which result in long-winding conversations. In workshops, where time is limited, the key is to remain focused on the task.
- If we refer to spectacles as “glasses,” then it’s prudent that we also refer to spectacles as “glasses.” This makes conversations consistent and easier to follow for everyone. Especially in documentation.
- Be honest about the grey areas – We aren’t expected to know everything about everything. We can get more clarity from subject matter experts.
Collate discussions as it's essential that everyone is on the same page and knows what the next steps are. We can achieve this by mapping dependencies and creating a mind map.
Moving teams forward through collaboration
As with all design processes, interdisciplinary teams are essential. Through diversity knowledge and thinking, teams can be trans-formative and provide a holistic approach. The strength of these teams is often gained through creative friction – a key element to creating new ways of doing things.
Referring to stakeholder management, we need to be setting clear expectations around what we are asking the team to do. We need to be defining the challenge. Software development is inherently systemic, so it’s valuable to have a clear definition of what we are trying to solve and how we plan to go about it.
Start by clarifying the goal – what are we trying to accomplish?
As a group, we then need to answer a few questions
- What impact do we hope to create?
- What does success look like? How will we know when we get there?
- What’s working? How can we amplify the focus?
- What’s working against us? How do we plan on addressing these challenges?
From here we need to create action. What steps will we take to make this happen?
- What questions does the team need to explore to move forward?
- Who are the key players and collaborators we need to make this happen?
- What is the early narrative we want to create around our intentions that we can share with others?
- What are the next steps?
Accountability
- How will we collaborate internally? Externally? Engage stakeholders? Engage users?
- Are there creative tensions? How can this help us find new ways and disrupt existing pathways?
Product Vision
The story behind a product can be what makes or breaks an initiative. A compelling narrative about the product can create loyalty in customers, stakeholders, and/or increase product adoption/support. What makes people invested in the idea? The brand?
Empathize with external & internal audiences. Consider how the product/service links to things such as;
- Value Add to customer services – New Models/Ownership/Personalization/Services.
- Being more adaptive to customer needs.
- Addressing risk in the business model
Product/Story Boards help define the narrative that we are trying to convey to the audience. What is the pain point/challenge we are trying to solve? Why is it important/relevant? What insights brought us to this solution? How will this impact users?
Feedback Loops - Continual Learning
Product development is continuous. It’s important to create feedback cycles and learn from the input we get along the way. This helps us explore the next steps to iterate the design and continue to add value to the business and the product.
Prototyping is a great way to make ideas tangible, get input in a low-stakes environment, and more importantly, test the product or service before a substantial investment. It’s also useful to gain the buy-in of stakeholders and other partners in the value chain.
Aligning company goals to the consumer
Whether it’s a large corporation or startup, I’ve found as you iterate the business and look to scale. There will be implications for how we, the team, the company, and partners in the system need to operate. Changing established organizations can be hard, but not impossible. Successful organizations align with their user proposition and how they contribute to the system they are part of, not just their own internal needs.
At the end of the day our goal is to create an enjoyable experience for the end user, to solve their problem - not create new ones along the way. Create Happiness.
Below are some great resources to help think differently.
Resources:
https//www.circulardesignguide.com/
https:/www.thoughtworks.com/insights
https://www.ideou.com/pages/design-thinking
https://www.romanpichler.com/tools/
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