A framework to develop user stories, prioritise them, and then link them to the current tools, analise gaps, and determine the ROI of technical development

1. Ideas and data
Gabriele Sani 20 May 2013

2. Page 2
Challenges
• Expert’s view
• All project team members come from IT & KM areas, how can we
understand and represent the best interest of the whole Confederation?
• Analysis Gaps
• How can we ensure that in our analysis we haven’t forgotten any key
area of business?
• Politics
• How can we ensure a fair choice?
• Limited Resources
• We have reduce the current costs, hence we cannot set a target, and
then allocate enough budget to meet it
• Urgency
• We want it soon, but not at the price of quality.

3. Page 3
Answer
• Establish a process for a comprehensive and fair evaluation
1. Define scope (see PID ) and target
2. Map the different audiences
3. Collect different points of view
4. Collate feedback to establish needs and priorities
5. Identify the tools that best fit our requirements
• Set realistic targets
• Plan for future improvements

5. Page 5
Identify the solution that offers
the highest Business Value
for
the smallest Cost

6. Page 6
Business value
The FC3 will provide
1. Up-to-date, comprehensive data to support informed decision to
improve our effectiveness
2. Improved Knowledge Management
3. Better Risk Management and Accountability
4. Higher Employee Satisfaction and Retention
USERS FIRST

7. Page 7
Cost
• To be evaluated over the whole expected lifetime (5+ yrs)
• The cost estimate should include:
• User’s time
• Training costs (we cannot even expect to train partners on our systems!)
• Opportunity costs
• Licence costs
• Initial Development & Integration costs
• Maintenance costs
• Cost to access expert advice on the platform (find a good consultant)
• Future development & integration costs (expect changes!)
• Initial migration TO the system
• Technical support costs
• Usability Studies
• System Analytics (can reduce the costs for the three items above)
• Opportunity costs (cost of vendor lock downs)
• Migration FROM the system
• …
USERS
FIRST

8. Page 8
WHY WE NEED YOU
1. Tell us if our analysis captures YOUR ways of working
1. If not, let us know so that we can include it!
2. Tell us why it is important to give you tools to support your
ways of working
1. We will prioritise the tools based on our understanding of how
important they are

10. Page 10
User segmentation
• By Department (Organograms)
• By Location (Headquarters / Field)
• By Scope (National / Regional / Global)
• By Collaboration Focus (Internal / Partners)
For additional consideration:
• By IT proficiency (High / Low)
• By type of connection (Good / Mobile / Poor / Intermittent)
• By Language (English / Spanish / French … more?)

12. Page 12
Ask, ask, ask, and ask.
From each person or group:
• Ask what are their key collaboration scenarios
• Ask for the business impact of those scenarios
• Ask who else would be a useful reference
• Ask for additional suggestions

14. Page 14
Identify key work tasks
• Capture our ways of working in Scenarios validated by
Oxfam employees from across the Confederation
• Information collected via:
• Workshops (HQ and field offices)
• Surveys (in 3 languages)
• One to One interviews
• Identify the importance of each action and tool in each scenario
• Eg: Find the people you need to talk with, have a video chat
instead of audio-only, share a policy paper.
• Weight scenarios by their significance
• Eg: coordinate the response to a new humanitarian emergency
vs organize a celebrity visit

15. Page 15
1
2
3
4
5
…
From Scenarios to Business Value
Scenarios Tools Business Value estimate
Weight each
scenario by
Business Value
for Oxfam
Weight each
tools by
importance for
each scenario

16. Page 16
Process guidelines
• Develop a list of scenarios that covers all the segments in our
audience mapping
• Assumption: the segmentation is correct, hence:
• doing fewer scenarios would not allow us to meet the requirements
of whole areas of business
• doing more scenarios would add very little value
• Agree together on the Business Value of each scenario to
have a balanced and coherent comparison
• Assumption: the feedback from the audience is accurate
• Key requirement for an objective evaluation
• The whole impact of each scenario (not just on the person talking
with us!) is properly evaluated

18. Page 18
Scenarios
1. Project Team Lead - Setting up project, team, team space
2. Team Member - Country project
3. External Stakeholder - Fundraising person doing an appeal around an emergency response.
4. Staff member - New manager has to prepare report for new financial year.
5. Editorial - IT person in Oxfam Novib creates & publishes revised security policy in response to
incidents.
6. Coordinator - Regional program advisor for EI is writing a strategy paper for the region.
7. Member - Someone joins a smaller affiliate with remit to improve their T4D strategy.
8. Member - WASH HSP is deployed to a rapid onset emergency.
9. Coordinator - Regional funding coordinator is preparing a donor report.
10. External stakeholder - Programme director recruiting new Program Manager looking for job
description, remuneration policies, etc
11. Leader - New country director wants to get to know their team/program and communicate their
approach.
12. Coordinator - Setting up Trustee meeting to approve strategy.
13. Audience - Corporate announcement to as many people as possible.
14. Coordinate the response to a Humanitarian Emergency
15. Start a new partnership

19. Page 19
Where we are
• 15 scenarios so far
• Let us know if they do not cover your ways of working!!!

20. Page 20
Analysing Scenarios
• Develop together with representative end users his/her key
collaboration scenarios
• Make a list of steps for each scenario
• One step for each basic task
• For each step, write down:
• What tools are needed
• What questions arise
• What ideas are sparked
• Discuss feedback between the FC3 team members to agree
the weight of each scenario
Help us helping you:
Be clear, and provide
objective estimates!

21. Page 21
Example – Celebrity visit to Tanzania
Steps ToolsQuestions Ideas
(see slide notes for details)
A celebrity is due to visit Tanzania
Step
2
Step
3
Step
4
Step
5
Step
6
Step
7
Step
8
Step
9
Step
10
UC FS
Step
1
Q1
Q2
PD
In
PD UC Q3
In
UC
In PD
In
UC
FS
UC
PD
FS
PD
In
Q4
In
UC
FS
FSi1
i2
i3
What steps are needed?
- Who will be involved, and what will they need?-
- What is the impact of this scenario? -
- Any additional ideas or feedback? -

22. Page 22
Example - outcome
Tool description Fallback option Impact of not
having this
Importance
Find one person Ask around Wasted time 85
Find all people based on criteria Send to someone and
ask to share
Wasted time + possible
missed communication
70
See person availability Wait Loss of trust 30
See contact details Ask someone else Wasted time 100
Find relevant policies Ask around Missing key information
+ Major waste of time
90
Find Celebrity Information Google it Minor waste of time, but
could be more up-to-date
10
Find local suppliers, hotels, ... Find new ones Minor waste of time, but
could be more up-to-date
20
Find relevant templates Create from scratch Major waste of time 65
Find welcome packs & country info Google it Minor waste of time 25
Shared calendar Create event in intranet,
then send invite via
email
Minor waste of time 45
Be alerted of the existence of similar
documents to what I am trying to
create
Create from scratch Missed learning and
reuse, major waste of
time
50

23. Page 23
Example - outcome
Tool description Fallback option Impact of not
having this
Importance
Chat Call telephone or mobile Cost for calling 55
Video Chat Call telephone or mobile Cost for calling, reduced
cohesiveness
30
Group call Use telephone
conference tool
Higher costs – may be
too high for partners
75
Share 1 document with one
colleague
Send email with
attachment
Cluttered inbox = major
waste of time
45
Share multiple docs with all people
matching a certain filter
Upload to intranet and
send email with links
Minor waste of time,
slower access to doc
60
Edit a document with other Oxfam
staff
Download, edit, upload,
while keeping an eye on
different versions.
Major waste of time 50
Share document with non-Oxfam
people
Send via email Mail quota management 35

24. Page 24
Business Value Assessment
• Tools for the assessment
• the OSP and other key Oxfam strategic papers
• Past experiences of existing collaboration tools in Oxfam
• the FC3 workshops, surveys, and the individual interviews
• Best practices and case studies of similar tools to the ones adopted
• Studies of collaboration tools
• Experts’ Advices
…

25. Page 25
Common threads so far
• Timely access to information, regardless of where it is
• Find people with the right set of skills/expertise
• Communicate with target audiences
• Complete daily tasks QUICKLY
• Training is time-intensive and barrier to adoption – the tools MUST be
intuitive
• Support local languages to work with partners
• How many, and to what extend?

27. Page 27
Three strategies
1) Consolidate what we have
2) Develop a new stack of best-of-breed solutions
3) Choose a single-vendor solution

28. Page 28
Making a choice
• Compare the business value, not the tools
• Assess the costs and business value over the whole lifetime –
development budget may give a completely different mileage
Current
costs
Currently
Delivered BV
Costs
Business
Value
Visionary
Backward
Ingenious
Misguided
Now
TARGET
Budget constrain

29. Page 29
GABRIELE SANI | Intranet manager & FC3 member
gabriele.sani@oxfaminternational.org
+44 (0)1865 339 127
skype: sanigabriele_oi