This document discusses how IBM uses "Hills" as a framework for product development. Hills are aspirational goals framed around user outcomes rather than features. They help align teams and focus work. The document outlines what makes a good Hill, how to construct Hills, and how Hills can be broken into sub-Hills or releases. It also notes that Hills should have a clear who, what, and wow - describing user benefits without technical details. Hills provide a roadmap to guide design and development work at IBM.

1. IBM DesignIBM Design
Creating ‘Hills’ to frame your releases around user-centric
market outcomes, not feature requests
Daryl Walker-Smith & Richard Halford
IBM York Lab
#CampDigital
There’s Gold in them thar Hills

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Who we are & What we do
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Daryl Walker-Smith
Senior UX Designer
Richard Halford
Senior UX Designer

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We will be showing you how simple
and powerful ‘Hills’ are, how they
work, how to use them and learn how
to construct them in less than an
hour. (And start using them today!)
Our Hill
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“Good design is good business.”
- Thomas Watson Jr., 1973
5www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/gooddesign/

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Paul Rand
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Ray &
Charles Eames
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“There’s one key to our future growth:
the client experience.”
- Ginni Rometty
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IBM Design Thinking
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IBM Design Thinking is a framework for
delivering great user experiences
to our clients.
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IBM Design Thinking Methods
Design Thinking methods help you envision your user experience
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Sponsor Users
Sponsor Users bring your team deep domain expertise around edge-case usage
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Playbacks
Playbacks align teams and stakeholders, clients, and prospects
around stories that show the value of your offering
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So what is a ‘Hill’?
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https://youtu.be/TUXuV7XbZvU

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• The human race…
• …will send a man to the moon…
• …and return him back safely to earth
by the end of this decade
An example of a great hill
Who
What
Wow &
Wow
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How did they ‘take’ this Hill?
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• By using a diverse team of people
• by creating multiple prototypes
• and using a lot of creativity.
• They took the hill in 1969

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https://youtu.be/b6TYTG81NtY

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What makes a good Hill?
Four things:
• Written in clear, plain language, describes value
• Clearly state who will benefit
• No jargon, technology, acronyms, solutions
• Defined, measurable outcome
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Constructing a Hill
Deliver a custom Connections
community template to allow
agile teams to collaborate
on client projects.
A Product Manager can create a
rich collaboration space for the
team, across IBM, in under a minute
without IT support.
(Deliver by April 2015)
Who What Wow
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Creating Hills - Who should be involved?
Product
Management
DevUX
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• an aspirational goal for users
• a succinct objective
• focussed objective that aligns the team
• helps to drive the design and dev work.
What a Hill is
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• A milestone
• A roadmap
• A solution
• A plan for design and development.
What a Hill is not
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What do we do if our Hills are very complex?
A Hill can be complex in two ways
• Large in scope i.e. providing a broad set of user experiences
involving many different types of users in multiple different
contexts
• The Hill has (perhaps bi-directional) dependencies on Hills of
other products, which is common in product portfolios.
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Breaking a Hill down by releases (Creating Subhills)
• Messaging only with a maximum
of 10 members
(Release 1)
• Messaging with channels for
business unit
(Release 2)
• Rich messaging with media and
search across all of IBM
(release 3).
A Product Manager can create a
rich collaboration space for the
team, across IBM, in under a minute
without IT support.
(Deliver by April 2015)
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How many Hills do we need?
Hill 1 Hill 2 Hill 3
1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 3.3
Technical Foundation
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How many Hills do we need?
Hill 1 Hill 2 Hill 3
Technical Foundation
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10%
30%
50%
10%

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What is the Technical Foundation?
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• Led by development
• Sets out internal technical objectives
Technical Foundation

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• Who - Who’s the WHO for this conference?
• What - What is this conference actually about?
• Wow - What is the WOW for this conference going to be?
Activity - Constructing a Conference Hill
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31. Activity - Session Hill
• Who - Who’s the WHO for this talk?
• What - What is this talk actually about?
• Wow - What is the WOW for this talk going to be?
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• IBM Design heritage
• IBM Design Thinking
• What are Hills - and why
are they useful?
• What makes a good Hill?
• How to create a Hill
Summary
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Find out more
IBM Design: http://www.ibm.com/design
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Find out more
@halfordrich
Richard Halford
@darylws
Daryl Walker-Smith IBM Uni of York Lab
@IBMUniofYorkLab
IBM Design
@ibmdesign
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