Discovery & Inception at Agile Practices

1. DISCOVERY AND INCEPTION
AT AGILE PRACTICES
FATMA ÜREK ULUDAĞ

2. © 2015 ThoughtWorks Yazılım Ltd. Şti. - Confidential - please do not distribute
INNOVATION METHODS
DISCOVER
Research, explore
and understand
DEFINE
Synthesise insights
define the opportunity
DESIGN
Divergent ideation,
prototype,
validate ideas
DELIVER
Iteratively build,
test with customers,
refine
Curiosity and empathy for your
customers are often the inspiration
for Innovation. The discovery phase
does not have to be lengthy, just
enough learning to define the
problem you are trying to solve.
The define stage is one of focus and
convergence around the opportunity.
Define your customer, your business
model and your product hypothesis.
This is where you set a vision and align
your stakeholders.
Guided by our vision, the design phase is
divergent in nature, encouraging multiple
ways of solving the problem. We rapidly
prototype, test and refine the design and
prepare for the delivery phase.
In delivery, the focus shifts to robust
execution as we plan the releases,
build, iteratively test and refine the
product. Through validation with
customers we optimise the
effectiveness of the product.

3. INNOVATION PIPELINE
Enhance existing product
offerings with customer
research and idea generation,
followed by rapid design and
delivery.
KINDS OF PROJECT
PROJECT PLAN 1 PROJECT PLAN 2 PROJECT PLAN 3
NEW PRODUCT
Get your idea to market fast,
starting with light-weight
customer research, followed
by a 1 week inception, then
build, measure and learn.
2 WEEK INCEPTION
You have a mature product
with well understood
customers and a product
vision – you are ready to
deliver.

4. WHEN IS DISCOVERY NEEDED?

5. DISCOVERY
”The discovery stage should deliver just enough qualitative and
quantitative data to have confidence that we understand the
customer opportunity.”
From Innovation Methods, ThoughtWorks

6. DISCOVERY OBJECTIVES
CLARIFY THE BIG IDEAS
THAT WE WILL BE
DEVELOPING IN THE
INCEPTION
DEFINITION OF HIGH
LEVEL SCOPE
IDENTIFICATION OF
COMPETITORS
IDENTIFICATION OF
PROJECT / PRODUCT
SUCCESS CRITIERA

7. EXPERT REVIEW
7

8. COMPETITIVE REVIEW
8

9. FOCUS GROUP
9

10. OUTCOMES
Clearly defined objectives for the product and supporting sites
High level scope
High level architectural and technical knowledge
Agreed inception schedule

11. INCEPTION
”An inception is a collaboration of key stakeholders (including but
not only most of the delivery team) to gain a shared
understanding of vision, value and approach.”
From Innovation Methods, ThoughtWorks

12. Highly collaborative and inclusive
Time-boxed and rapid, focused on doing ‘just enough’
Feedback-driven and highly adaptive
Is not upfront analysis
Highly visual and workshop oriented to help evolve a vision for
the project.
HOW INCEPTIONS FEEL

13. INCEPTION OBJECTIVES
BUILD A SHARED
UNDERSTANDING OF
PROJECT VISION AND
GOALS
EVALUATE HIGH-LEVEL
SCOPE AND CORE
PROCESSES
EVALUATE KEY RISKS,
ISSUES AND
CONSTRAINTS IN
DELIVERING TO THE
END GOAL
ESTABLISH TECHNICAL
AND TESTING
APPROACH

14. OUTCOMES
All artifacts necessary to get started
A prioritised list of features that deliver the most business value
Consensus about the future state
A shared vision of the solution
Jointly produced system requirements
A realistic, achievable plan for an early release of business value.

15. VISION

16. CREATE A SHARED VISION

17. UNDERSTAND BUSINESS VISION

18. FUTURESPECTIVE

19. TRADE-OFF SLIDERS

20. PERSONAS

21. PERSONAS
Representations for your users/audience
Further specification of roles - how people of the same role might
use the system differently
They represent the goals, motivations, characteristics and
behaviour of a real group of users
They are fictional, but based on fact

22. EXAMPLE PERSONA
•• Hyper Harry
The road warrior
•
About Harry:
• Work is his life
• Top salesman 4 years in a row
• On the road 90% of the year
• Mobile device junkie
• Severely impatient
“Stillness is death”
Key Goals & Needs:
• Anywhere, anytime access
to data
• Process my sale quickly

23. USER JOURNEYS

24. USER JOURNEY
End-to-end journey
Formula: user journey = persona + task + environment
Looking to cover all the goals of the roles/personas
Use user journeys to drive out requirements and to validate that solutions can solve
the tasks identified in all possible environments.

25. USER JOURNEY

26. UNDERSTAND AND PROPOSE
TECHNICAL SOLUTION

27. TECHNICAL APPROACH
Technical visioning
Architecture
Proposed testing approach
Addressing Non Functional Requirements (NFRs)

28. DESIGN: WIREFRAMES,
PROTOTYPES, AND MOCK-UPS

29. WIREFRAMES, PROTOTYPES AND MOCK-UPS
Models
Represent screens and flow
Lo-fi, Mid-fi
Low cost, easy to change
Helps test usability
Components become stories

30. IDENTIFY & DISCUSS
FEATURES AND STORIES

31. LEVELS OF REQUIREMENT
Feature
Epics
Stories
Tasks
•
Customer
•
Security
•
Letters
• Customer
Maintenance
•
Login
• Deactivate
Customer
•
Debtor
• Debtor
Maintenance
•
Forgot Password
•
Paid in full
letters
• Connect to
LDAP
•
Collect all PIF
letters
•
•
Enter New
•
Missing
Required
•
Find status
of
•
Generate

32. STORY WRITING
As a <type of user>,
I want <some goal>
so that <some reason>.

33. STORY WRITING
I INDEPENDENT Self-contained, in a way that there is no inherent dependency on another user story.
N NEGOTIABLE Can always be changed and rewritten, up until they are part of an iteration.
V VALUABLE Must be able to deliver value to the end user or the business.
E ESTIMABLE Be able estimate the size of a functionality, relative to the other stories.
S SCALABLE
(SMALL SIZED)
Not be so big as to become impossible to plan/task/prioritize with a certain level of certainty.
T TESTABLE Provide the necessary information to make test development possible. How can you tell it is done?

34. Must Should Could Wouldn’t
PRIORITISE

35. ESTIMATION

36. We should capture...

37. PREPARE RELEASE PLAN
ITERATION N ITERATION N ITERATION N ITERATION NITERATION NITERATION 0
Inception
START END
Envolve/Handover
Analyse Design Build Test Deploy

38. INCEPTION DELIVERABLES
Business Vision and Project Objectives
Prioritised High Level Requirements (Stories & NFRs)
Technical Approach
Visual Design Mock-ups
Release Plan
RAIDs & Communication Plan
Next Steps

39. Questions?
THANK YOU