THE ESSENTIALS OF A DIGITAL PROJECT

DANNY BLUESTONE, NOV 2014

TODAY

1. About Danny 2. Strategy 3. Approach 4. The Brief 5. Technology 6. Execution 7. Recap

ABOUT ME

WHAT IS A STRATEGY?

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A HIGH LEVEL PLAN TO ACHIEVE ONE OR MORE GOALS UNDER

CONDITIONS OF UNCERTAINTY

A DIGITAL BUSINESS NEEDS THE FOLLOWING INNOVATIONS

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THE PRODUCT HAS TO BE UNIQUE

‘SHAREABILITY’ IS KEY

DISTRIBUTION SHOULD BE BUILT-IN

INNOVATIVE BUT ADAPTIVEImage:http://beta.robocast.com/roboshows/1233-eric-ries-the-pivot

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THERE ARE 4 TYPES OF DIGITAL PROJECTS

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DIFFERENT PROJECTS NEED DIFFERENT STRATEGIES:

1. Branding and marketing projects

2. Information and content rich projects

3. Functional, system and IoT driven applications

4. Combos, as most projects combine at least two of the above. When going ‘cross-channel’ further consideration is required.

APPROACH

HEROES ONLY LIVE IN MOVIES…

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BUT HELP IS HERE. HERE ARE APPROACHES TO HELP DELIVER AND EXECUTE YOUR STRATEGY:1. Agile and Scrum - Geared towards (2-3 weekly) sprint releases that

include QA, little to no documentation, a self managing team with a ‘product owner’. Planning is done within each sprint via user stories.

2. Waterfall - Normally a phased approach with upfront planning and specifications followed by design. Development is normally done in the middle with user acceptance testing (UAT) at the end.

3. Lean - More of a set of principles and philosophy, encouraging experiments and pivots via MVPs, learning, iterating and improving. Lean propagates avoiding development waste at all costs.

THE PROJECT TRIANGLE TO THE RESCUE

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QUALITY

TIMELINEBUDGET

FEATURES

SPRINT 01

Release login and registration screens

SPRINT 02

Release shopping cart experience

SPRINT 03

Release data import and blog

SPRINT 04

Release indexing, search and UAT fixes

PLANNING PLANNING PLANNING PLANNING

SCRUM

WATERFALLRequirements

User Experience (UX) & Design

Development& QA

Deployment

Continued Support

LEAN

Ideas

CodeData

BUILDLEARN

MEASURE

Split tests Customer interviews Five Whys root cause analysis Cross-functional teams

Unit tests Usability tests

Continuous integration Open source components

Product owner accountability Cohort analysis Real-time alerting

Innovation accounting Eliminate waste

Net promoter score

Agile Waterfall Lean

Individuals and interactions Processes and tools Proven and people focused processes

Working software Software and documentation Validated software and wikis

Customer colloboration Contracts and negotiations Smart, flexible and challenged proposals

Responding to change Following a plan The build, measure, learn loop

SUMMARISING THE APPROACHES

Using the agile manifesto as a base

THE BRIEF

KEEP IT BRIEF

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THINGS TO INCLUDE IN A BRIEF:1. Outline strategy - Reference to your original strategy, your

hypothesis and goals for both the launch (MVP) and beyond! 2. Approach - What type of methodology do you want to take? 3. Resources - Who’s going to do what and when? It should be clear

what you expect from each partner and stakeholder. 4. Content strategy - This requires careful thought. 5. Marketing - How will marketing be built-in to your new project and

what happens when the project launches? 6. Branding - Your brief should refer to brand guidelines which are

important and will expedite the production if done properly. 7. Technology - It’s always worth outlining what you need in the brief.

TECHNOLOGY

I CHOOSE A LAZY PERSON TO DO A HARD JOB BECAUSE A LAZY PERSON WILL FIND AN EASY WAY TO DO IT.

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TECHNOLOGY CONSIDERATIONS:

1. Touch-points - Based on the touch points and channels you are designing for, carefully select proven and scalable technology.

2. MVC Framework - For the backend use a model-view-controller (MVC) framework. The model manages the data and business logic.

3. Platform - Sometimes it’s worth using a platform if all you need is a basic CMS-powered or e-commerce website.

4. TDD - Test driven development (TDD) entails writing test scripts and unit tests upfront to constantly test functionality.

5. Bundled releases - Schedule software releases every two weeks on a staged server so all resources work in tandem.

EXECUTION

DESIGN DRIVES INNOVATION; INNOVATION POWERS BRAND; BRAND BUILDS LOYALTY; AND LOYALTY SUSTAINS PROFITS.

Image: http://www.brandingbricks.com/2014/06/20/post-199-a-brand-interview-with-marty-neumeier-part-1/

FINALLY, EXECUTE:

1. User centred design (UCD) - Regardless of your approach, incorporate UCD so decisions are made based on real user input.

2. Design heuristics - Make sure that both the creative and technical teams adhere to IA and IxD heuristics.

3. Interdisciplinary teams - Make sure the team is cross-disciplinary and works closely together, challenging each other all the time.

4. Presentations and walk throughs - Use ‘show and tells’ to regularly present weekly progress.

5. Use good PM tools - Use tools like JIRA to manage issues, Basecamp for communication and Trello as a lean board.

RECAP

A QUICK RECAP:

1. Strategy - Stick to your strategy but ensure it’s lean and adaptable. 2. Approach - Feel free to pick and choose a methodology that suits

your type of project and organisational setup. 3. Brief - Make sure the brief clearly articulates your goals and KPIs. 4. Experience design - Remember that your ‘experience’ needs to be

thoroughly tested with real people before you go to market. Use UCD to help you really focus on your customers.

5. Putting it all together - Your project consists of branding, technology and marketing elements. Your job is to ‘gel’ it together.

THANK YOU@DANNY_BLUESTONE

@CYBERDUCK_UK