Project thinking and digital service business – Mikko Viikari's presentation at Nordic Process Days 4/10/2014.

1. Nordic Process Days, 10.4.2014
Mikko Viikari
Project thinking and
digital service business

2. Futurice
Companyfacts
› Digitalservices agency
› Establishedin 2000
› 5 locations:
London, Berlin, Helsinki,Tam
pere, Lausanne
› 200+ employees;
30% annualgrowth
200

3. We believe that our values – trust, caring, transparency and
continuous improvement – are the key to our happiness cycle
that includes happy customers, happy people and happy end-
users!
Today,Futuriceis the bestplaceto
workin Europe!
#1

4. Afewbrandswe’veworkedwith

5. Digitalservice?
Service is an intangible commodity. Service is produced
and consumed at the same time.
Digital service? Same stuff, but (primarily) using digital
channel.

6. TheClockRateofDigital

7. Markets are global
Changes in work
culture
The digital revolution has
disrupted traditional ways of
doing business
Competition is global
State of the world, 2014

8. Project
» Ethymology:
› latinproicere,beforeaction.
› Inenglish:”planofsomething”
» By definion projecthas start,end, goal, plan and budget/resources
4/16/2014 Futurice 8
scope
Product or service
Project
budget
plan

9. Projectthinkinghasclearbenefits
» Focuses resources to achieve defined goals
» Abstractsaway complexity. Project is an elegant box.
» Everybody knows ”project” and ”project management”. Makes
communicationand management much easier.
» Clear procedures for investments,decisions and contracts.
» Existing,good models for planningwork and trackingprogress.
» Project is excellent concept when the problem is somewhat clear and
the game is linear.
4/16/2014 Futurice 9

10. Softwareprojectsin2trad.ways
4/16/2014 Futurice 10
Reqs spec Design
Build
Deploy
Maintenance
80% ofTCO
100% of benefits
We build exactly what was specified, in schedule,
and budget! Cool?
Front-end
Agile development
project Small-scale development
We released the desired product iteratively, in
schedule and budget. Hooray! And we improved based on the user feedback.
Actually a lot of work
was done here.

11. Historyofsoftwareprojects
4/16/2014 Futurice 11
» Project failed.(1990, wtrfll)
» Project was a success but the patientdied. (2000)
» Project was a success and the customer was rather happy. (2010, agile)
» 2014: ?

12. So,whatiswrongwithagilesoftware
development,evenifappliedproperly.
» Notthatmuch,agileisa greatstart,butit...
» oftenfocuseson method,ratherthanactualgoalsand results
» andon delivering software,ratherthanuserexperienceor businessimpact.Softwareas
suchiswaste.
» makesyouadd featuresand removebugs,insteadof creatinga productthe userswould
love(eveniftheydonot know it yet)
» expectationsforProductOwnerare typicallyunrealistic
» isan ismand somehowdetachedfromreality.
4/16/2014 Futurice 12

13. Whathaschanged,whatisneeded?
» UserAcceptance vs.User Experience.Acceptable user experience is a
loosingstrategy in a ”winner takes it all” game.
» Product and marketing are the same. Digitalservices are more and
more about customer development.
» Continuous learning,tweaking,designing and hacking to improve the
KPIs.
» You need a smart architecture(micro services andAPIs) to be able to
change the business direction in agile way.
» Buy (from cloud) or build?
134/16/2014 Futurice

14. ACritiqueofProject
» Focus on wrong stuff:
› Managementfocuson”project”,not”product”.”Howtofullfilpredefinedscopewithintheset
limitations.”
› Whenweshouldfocusontheproductandthecustomers.Whatisthebestwaytoaddvalueand
learnrightnow?
» Projecttime-box is mis-leadingabstraction
› Launchisnotanendofanything.Itisthestartforbusinessbenefitsand(mostofthe)learning.
› Goodserviceisnever100%completed.
› Projectisafundamentallywrongstateofmind.Itgivesanillusionthatwearefreeafterthedeadline
anddelivery.
4/16/2014 Futurice 14

15. 4/16/2014 Futurice 15
…
New approach. Lean Service Creation (LSC)
Continuous learning and hypothesis-driven development.
Continuous development of the service and the customers. Every day.

17. Historyofsoftwareprojects,v2
4/16/2014 Futurice 17
» Project failed.(1990, wtrfll)
» Project was a success but the patientdied. (2000)
» Project was a success and the customer was rather happy. (2010, agile)
» There was no project but digitalbusiness was successful. (2014, LSC)

18. Whatwillreplace”agileproject”working
model?
» Continuousdevelopmentflow. Kanban.
» Moreownership:”Youbuild it,You run it” (Amazon). DevOps.
» No distinctionwith ”developmentproject”and ”maintenance”
» Theslowerbeat:ServiceVisionSprint. Frequent,intensive,freshanalysis and
steeringmethod.
» Validated,direct customerand businessneedsdrive and prioritizethe
development.
» Marketmechanismsand intrapreneurshipinsteadof
presentation+committeemodelin making investmentdecisions.
184/16/2014 Futurice

19. 6tipsfororganisingservicecreation
» Build a realcross-functionalservicecreationteam: design,developmentand
marketing.
» Have a proper design,product vision,”strongcenters”and unique value
prop, not just a backlog.
» Spendabsolutemax 50% of your budget pre-launch.Launch is a beginning,
not an end.
» Spend80% of the time on improving existing”features”,20% on adding new
ones. (ok...dependson the levelof competition)
» Validatewith real users,verify the businessresults
» UseKanban for workflowmanagement
194/16/2014 Futurice

20. Waste
Speed
20

21. MikkoViikari
mikko.viikari@futurice.com
+35850 3797 152
Contact