© 2012 Redpoint Technologies. All rights reserved.

Project Inceptions with Personas and Story Maps Southeast WI IIBA Chapter

Dave Neuman, Principal, Redpoint Technologies Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Confidential information.

Our Challenge Today

Launch a new product in 6 months or less •  Name:

­  TestNation! •  Product:

­  Awesome electronic test management and test taking platform for high schools •  Market:

­  Over 16M students and over 1M teachers in about 36K secondary schools •  Goals:

1.  Save 1 hour of time per test for teachers in manual test creation, grading, and reporting •  1hr x 5 tests x 1M teachers = 5M hrs x $40/hr = $200M in savings that can be spent

elsewhere •  1hr x 5 tests x 1M teachers = 5M hrs of additional teaching of students

2.  Improve quality and reliability of testing results (limit cheating and favoritism) 2

Our Challenge Today

Launch a new product in 6 months or less •  Name:

­  TestNation! •  Product:

­  Awesome electronic test management and test taking platform for high schools •  Market:

­  Over 16M students and over 1M teachers in about 36K secondary schools •  Goals:

1.  Save 1 hour of time per test for teachers in manual test creation, grading, and reporting •  1hr x 5 tests x 1M teachers = 5M hrs x $40/hr = $200M in savings that can be spent

elsewhere •  1hr x 5 tests x 1M teachers = 5M hrs of additional teaching of students

2.  Improve quality and reliability of testing results (limit cheating and favoritism) 3

Where do we start?

Typical Project Inception Flow

4

Project Charter

Delivery

Product Roadmap

Delivery

PM Sponsor

Product Manager

Team(s)

Team(s)

Requirements

Sprint 0

Blitz Planning

Sprint 0 Specs

Lean Startup

Build a minimal viable product

Backlog

Team Customer Development

Typical Project Inception Flow

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Project Charter

Delivery

Product Roadmap

Delivery

PM Sponsor

Product Manager

Requirements

Sprint 0

Blitz Planning

Sprint 0 Specs

Lean Startup

Build a minimal viable product

Backlog

Team(s)

Team(s)

Team Customer Development

Where is the customer or user in the process?

Integrate User Centered Design into Project Inceptions for Success

6

Product Visioning

User Profiling

Story Mapping

Agile Delivery

Cross-functional Inception Team – Customer, users, delivery team, product/project mgmt

Delivery Teams

•  Drives more user experience and product-centric design thinking sooner •  Provides rich context to guide planning, prioritization, and decisions

•  Tools for entire team to UNDERSTAND THE BIG PICTURE

Backlog of Features

Project Inceptions / Planning Workshops

Problem / Solution Business Model Business Case Project Charter

Personas Story Maps

Integrate User Centered Design into Project Inceptions = Success

7

Product Visioning

User Profiling

Story Mapping

Agile Delivery

Cross-functional Inception Team – Customer, users, delivery team, product/project mgmt

Delivery Teams

•  Drives more user experience and product-centric design thinking sooner •  Provides rich context to guide planning, prioritization, and decisions

•  Tools for entire team to UNDERSTAND THE BIG PICTURE

Backlog of Features

Project Inceptions / Planning Workshops

Problem / Solution Business Model Business Case Project Charter

Personas Story Maps

Why Personas

•  Needs ­  Quick way to develop a customer or user profile ­  Go beyond basic demographics ­  Develop shared understanding of users environment, behavior,

concerns, and motivations

•  Positive Outcomes ­  Make the user and their experience a 1st class citizen ­  Guide decision making in business models, product roadmaps,

projects, product backlogs, UX design, etc. 8

Persona Development using Empathy Maps

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Six questions to quickly profile a customer or user Developed by Scott Mathews of XPLANE

Let’s Profile

Profile one TestNation! user using an Empathy Map

1.  Generate list of possible users and select one to profile 2.  Individually brainstorm one comment for each question SILENTLY 3.  When everyone is ready then take turns adding comments to the map (consolidate

similar comments into one comment) 4.  Give the persona a name, read out the profile within group for confirmation

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Show and tell, persona style

Would one persona please stand-up and introduce themself

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User Story Maps

•  A collection of user stories is a product backlog – but we need more CONTEXT

•  A user story map is an approach to ORGANIZING and PRIORITIZING user stories using a multi-dimensional arrangement of goals, activities, and stories

•  Positive Outcomes ­  Makes end to end user experience or workflow visible ­  Show relationships between larger stories to smaller stories as well as alternate

variations and alternate flows ­  Confirm completeness of the backlog ­  Context for prioritization and release planning that focuses on goals and activities ­  Team’s own visual language for big picture thinking and context

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User Story Maps - Real World Example

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User Story Maps - Described

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Time

Releases Priority

High

Low

Variations

Variations

User Activities

User Stories

Tell the big story of the product – a day in the life of a user

User Goals

Walking Skeleton

User Story Maps - Described with examples

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Time

Releases Priority

High

Low

Variations

Variations

User Activities

User Stories

Tell the big story of the product – a day in the life of a user

User Goals Organize Email

Manage Email

Create Basic

Open Basic

Delete Email

Open HTML

Create HTML

Manage Calendar

Mark Read

Walking Skeleton

Compose Email

Read Email

Delete Email

Search Email

File Emails

Archive Email

(begin with verbs)

User Story Maps - Advanced

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Time

User Goals

User Activities

User Stories Releases Priority

High

Low

Variations

Variations

UI Mockups

Organize Email

Manage Email

Create Basic

Open Basic

Delete Email

Mark Read

Open HTML

Create HTML

Manage Calendar

System Action

Walking Skeleton

Compose Email

Read Email

Delete Email

Search Email

File Emails

Archive Email

Let’s Practice

We’re going to create a Story Map for our TestNation! solution 1.  Select one persona to start with 2.  Brainstorm user goals 3.  Brainstorm user activities – build the walking skeleton

•  “How does the user X accomplish Y goal? What are the steps they take?” 4.  Brainstorm user stories – add meat to the bone 5.  Identify alternate paths

•  Find alternate variations by walking the process and asking, “What else could they do?”

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Personal & Story Mapping Wrap-up

Observations?

Questions?

Thank you! 18