Lviv IT Arena is a conference specially designed for programmers, designers, developers, top managers, inverstors, entrepreneurs and startuppers. Annually it takes place at the beginning of October in Lviv at Arena Lviv stadium. In 2016 the conference gathered more than 1800 participants and over 100 speakers from companies like Microsoft, Philips, Twitter, UBER and IBM. More details about the conference at itarena.lviv.ua.

1. Semih Energin
Software Engineer, HoloLens
Microsoft
Creative Process and
Prototype Engineering

2. Who am I? | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Columbia University
CGUI Lab

4. Semih Energin
Software Engineer, HoloLens
Microsoft
Creative Process and
Prototype Engineering

5. The Question
Chapter 1

6. Chapter 1: The Question | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
“I think VR is really interesting. It has a lot of potential for job simulations.
I would like to build an experience that reduce costs and specialize at certain scenarios.
What do you think is best way to do that?”

7. Chapter 1: The Question | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Why this question is interesting to me?

8. Chapter 1: The Question | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering

9. Chapter 1: The Question | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering

10. Chapter 1: The Question | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering

11. Chapter 1: The Question | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering

12. Chapter 1: The Question | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
“I think <ABC> is really interesting. It has a lot of potential for <XYZ>.
I would like to build <KLM> that <IJK>.
What do you think is best way to do that?”

13. Chapter 1: The Question | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
ABC:
XYZ:
KLM:
IJK:
Unknown:
Target Area:
Building:
Goal:
“I think <ABC> is really interesting. It has a lot of potential for <XYZ>.
I would like to build <KLM> that <IJK>.
What do you think is best way to do that?”

14. Chapter 1: The Question | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
ABC:
XYZ:
KLM:
IJK:
Unknown:
Target Area:
Building:
Goal:
What is common?
• Formula is misleading
• Common theme: Unknown. Inexact solution. Inexact path to reach there.
• Inexact ~= Creative

15. The Process
Chapter 2

16. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
What are we looking for?
We need a plan to:
• Figure out what we are building
• Justify decisions
• Communicate state of the progress
• Understand why we are building
• Distribute and balance work
• Track progress
• Have clear goals
• Create something unique
• Build what we don’t know

17. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
What are we looking for?
We need a plan to:
• Figure out what we are building
• Justify decisions
• Communicate state of the progress
• Understand why we are building
• Distribute and balance work
• Track progress
• Have clear goals
• Create something unique
• Build what we don’t know
• Manage creativity

18. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
What are we looking for?
• Create something unique
• Build what we don’t know
• Manage creativity

19. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Problem: We have a rough idea.
Things we don’t have:
• Exact definition of what we are building
• Exact definition of if ideas are legit
• A seed and set of restrictions to grow on
Prototyping
How to go from A to B?

20. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Prototyping

21. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Prototyping

22. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Prototyping

23. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Prototyping

24. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Prototyping

25. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Creative Process
• Creativity and Innovation
• Unknown by nature
• Incubation, V1, traditionally creative, artistic, research
• For certain domains, it is just how things are done
• Game development
• Creative programming
• “I’m writing code, how is that relevant to me?”
• Not only for PMs, Producers, Designers
• Invested ownership by engineering
• Mindset

26. Chapter 2: The Process | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Creative Process
• Chances are, you are already doing this
• Formalization helps
• Whether they know it or not
• Some are more formalized then the others
• Not only to manage a project, but also to define what you are building
• Scoping; why am I building this?
• Process and users; who am I building this for?
• Communication; what am I building?
• “Is this an agile talk in disguise?”
• …maybe.
• …but I don’t think so. We will be agile, but it is not all there is.

27. The Plan
Chapter 3

28. Creative Process and Prototype Engineering | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Yes! We are gonna build a prototype!
• Yes, but…
• What are we gonna prototype?

29. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
The Genius Idea That I Have!
• Yes, but…
• How well defined it is?
• How much your axioms based on factual knowledge?
• More well defined = More decisions
• How did you make those decisions?
• How many stakeholders are bought in?
• To what extend they can show ownership?
• Don’t you know how many different ways this can blow up?!?

30. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Fine. How do we define what we are prototyping?
• Good. -_-
• Let’s talk about how creative productions usually work and steal their
process.

31. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Pitch:
Investigation:
Definition:
Development:
Greenlight:
Wrap-up :
Elevator pitch, OLC, N Pillars, Press release
Competition, Differentiated research
Blue-sky, Ideation
Prototyping
Concept approval
Vertical-slice, pre-production, production, archiving
Overview

32. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Pitch
• Core principles of what you are building
• Acts as a contract amongst stakeholders + developers
• Expected end result: End user experience  Metrics desired
• Expected to change and discussed with passion earlier in the process
• Expected to canonically agreed in later parts of the project

33. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Pitch
• Core principles of what you are building
• Acts as a contract amongst stakeholders + developers
• Expected end result: End user experience  Metrics desired
• Expected to change and discussed with passion earlier in the process
• Expected to canonically agreed in later parts of the project
• Usually, it helps to have an owner
• Supreme Leader <-> Council Elder. Point is, a single voice.

34. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Pitch – Comes in many shapes and forms
• Elevator pitch – One line concept
• N Pillars
• Press release
Pitch – What it is not
• Definition of what you are building
• Vision Video
• Neither too abstract to be everything, nor concrete to be one thing

35. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Investigation
• Gathering information + Understanding the domain
• Pitch starts as a hypothesis. As you observe the world, you often need to
change it.
• Differentiated Research
• Identify unique aspects of domain + competition
• User needs, lacks, wants, pain points, satisfied needs
• What is there? What do we have? What is the difference?
• Finding opportunities

36. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Investigation
• What to investigate?
• Understanding technological landscape
• User Personas
• Aesthethics and Styles
• Brand placement
• End goal
• Solidify Core
• Come up with real problems on how to deliver it

37. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Definition
• Blue-Sky phase
• Ideation
• At this point, your Core should be solid.
• You are defining what you are going to build.
• Is both most creative and realistic phase
• Divergence
• Convergence

38. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Definition
• Blue-Sky, Ideation
• At this point, your Core should be solid.
• You are defining what you are going to build.
• Is both most creative and realistic phase
• Divergence
• Convergence

39. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Definition - Divergence
• Blue-sky phase
• Stimulating new thinking by diversifying and exploring
• Supposed to be scary for the developers
• If it is not challenging, then there is a good chance that it is a “me too”
idea.
• Dare to dream! This is defining the “magic” in your product.
• No bad ideas.
• Your goal here is to search and find golden ideas.
• Seemingly impossible ideas will be refined later, we are not married to
them.

40. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Definition – Divergence – Helper Methods: SWAMI
Suppose: Putting yourself in imaginary situations switches on new ways of thinking. Suppose you were from
Mars, what would this problem look like? Suppose you were six years old or three feet tall, what would the
future look like to you? Suppose you could smash all the assumptions around this issue?
Wander: Wandering through new territory with an open mind vacuums up new connections and linkages.
For instance, you can wander through hardware or antique stores, new magazines or conferences, random
images or analogies from nature.
Associate: Deliberately create new linkages between objects, ideas, events, people, or processes. As you link
things together that normally are not connected, you begin to see new relationships and new possibilities.
Morph: Change various aspects of the situation, make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.
Inquire: Questions create openings. A great question can unravel a mystery like a kitten batting a ball of
twine. Finding those great questions that open minds and the secrets of the universe is a learned skill based
on some simple principles and practice.

41. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Definition - Convergence
• Get your shit together phase
• Creative problem solving phase
• Come up with one-pagers, explaining
• How you are solving these problems
• Define user experience and technical solutions
• Practical and realistic

42. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Definition – Convergence – Helper Methods: SOARS
• Sort: In order to make sense of what is often hundreds of possibilities, they need to be grouped into
meaningful categories. Categories might be related to time, feasibility, market demand, availability of
resources, type of possibility or any other category that would bring order out of the chaos.
• Order: Possibilities within a viable categories can be ranked against pre-established criteria to create an
order of preference.
• Adapt: Once likely possibilities have been identified, they can be expanded and adapted to create even
better ideas.
• Refine: Likely possibilities need to be bullet proofed to find the weak spots and possible failure points.
• Select: Ideas are only ideas until they are implemented and to be implemented, they need to be
“owned.” Getting the right people to take ownership in the idea is a critical piece of the process.

43. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Development
• This is where we are FINALLY prototyping
• At this point, you should have
• A solid, well defined and agreed Core
• Handful of ideas on how you are going to achieve that (new hypotheses)
• You are NOT exploring
• You are prototyping to clearly answer questions
• Clear description
• Scenario
• Specs
• Scope

44. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Development – Prototyping – A Yes or No Question
• NO. Some ideas won’t work out
• How critical it is?
• Do a mini-creative process, a recursion if you will.
• Some No’s are hard No’s.
• Can you solve this problem?
• Be critical of yourself
• YES. Great!
• You have proved the concept, now turn it into a production plan

45. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Greenlight
You have defined what you are building.
You have built prototypes.
How are you measuring them?
• Metrics
• User research
• Development team will be biased. Heavily. A lot.
• Anyone who witnessed the process will be biased.
• If you can, have a gatekeeper team to evaluate and feedback.
• But some answers are just obvious

46. Chapter 3: The Plan | Creative Process and Prototype Engineering
Wrap-up
• Congratulations. Hopefully, you have built things you are proud of.
• Now go actually build it.
• Usually, process follows as: Vertical slice -> Preproduction -> Production
• End goal of prototyping might as well be have an answer. If so, archive.

47. Good Luck & Have Fun
Chapter 4
Semih Energin
semihenergin@gmail.com
semihenergin.com