Do you have a nagging feeling that you may not be investing in building the right thing? Do your products have features that are rarely or never used? Does it takes your organization the full investment of building and launching a product to validate an idea? Is your organization challenged with striking the right balance between the demands of a scalable, high-quality product and innovating on the most compelling problems and opportunities for your customers? At Pearson Online & Blended Learning, we met these challenges head-on by creating and implementing a framework that includes early collaboration within a multi-disciplinary team and a light-weight process. Based on Design Thinking principles and practices, the framework effectively balances discovery and delivery efforts. It ensures that, across the portfolio, our investments are focused on the right things, and the efforts of our delivery teams are aligned to solving the most important problems for our customers and addressing the most valuable opportunities for our business. In this interactive session, learn about this discovery framework, our implementation approach, and our triumphs and challenges. Each participant will have the opportunity to reflect on how a similar approach may help them address challenges within their own organizations.

1. Building the Right Thing with a
Formalized Discovery Process
Presented By:
Anjali Leon

2. Anjali Leon
Founder and Principal Coach & Consultant at PPL Coach
Co-Creator of the
PPL Agility and Resilience Navigator
• Coach, Workshop Designer & Facilitator, Advisor, Speaker
• Value-driven and Values-based Product, People and Personal
Leadership
• Design Thinking, Lean & Agile, Co-Active Coaching
• Founder of Empowering South Florida Women In Agile
• IC Agile Member Org., Game Changer Index Partner Org.
• Clients include: Modernizing Medicine, Alpine ITW, Pearson, UVA,
Office Depot, , Optical Group, AJT Systems, HealthFirst, AmEx

3. 3
Case Study: The Business Context
Ø 1000 employee business unit within large, complex organization
Ø Product: Fully online K-12 schools with over 70k full time students
enrolled
Ø Highly competitive business landscape with aggressive growth
goals
Ø Engaged in full re-build of the learning platform
Ø Scaled Agile (SAFe) development framework
@anjalileon

4. The Problem
BUILDINGTHE RIGHTTHING
BUILDINGTHE THINGRIGHT
@anjalileon

5. Other Challenges
Lack of Understanding of Problem to be Solved
Lack of Visibility into ”Readiness” of features
Lack of Trust with internal stakeholders
Lack of Time Commitment from key partners
@anjalileon

6. Reflection:
What of these or similar
challenges are you
experiencing in your
organization?
1 min
@anjalileon

7. What is Discovery?
A thoughtful, disciplined approach for
the right people to focus on
creating and validating a great
experience for users
@anjalileon

8. Discovery
Creating better
OUTCOMES
Delivery
Creating high
quality, scalable
OUTPUT
A Better Balance
@anjalileon

9. The Discovery Framework
Ø Principles of Design Thinking
Ø Cross-functional participation
Ø Clear guidelines and expectations
Ø Integrate into existing delivery process
@anjalileon

10. The Cross-Functional Team
Business
Owner
Business
SME
Vendor
Support
SME
Business
SME
Engineering
SME
Legal SME
Finance
SME
Analytics
Consultant
Extended
Discovery
Team
Product
Manager
UX
Designer
Core
Discovery
Team
Product
Owner
Engg.
Lead
QA Lead
Architect
@anjalileon

11. Ensuring Shared Understanding
Critical for continuity of
understanding real
need and intent
Product
Owner
Dev
QA
Lead
Architect
Product
Manager
UX
Designer
Core
Discovery
Team
Delivery
Team Team
Members
…
Tech
Lead
Scrum
Master
Product
Owner
Engg
Lead
QA
Lead
@anjalileon

12. The Discovery Process
Understand current
functionality
Understand the
customer
Uncover pain points
and potential
opportunities
Ideate potential
solutions
Create high-level
concept
Create hypothesis
Build prototypes
Get feedback from users
Synthesize Feedback
UNDERSTAND IDEATE VALIDATE DEFINE
Identify Viable Option
Define requirements
Prioritize based on cost
of Delay
@anjalileon

13. Integrating with the Delivery Process
Development
Lead
Business
SME
Empathize
Ideate
Sprint
Review
/ Retrospective
Potentially
Shippable
increment
Product
Backlog
Sprint
execution
Sprint planning
Learn
Validate
Define
Define
Understand
@anjalileon

14. Reflection:
What aspects of
this discovery
process would need
to be different for
your organization?
1 min
@anjalileon

15. Hurdle #1:
Getting everyone vested in the process
@anjalileon

16. Team charter
○ Get to know each other
○ Co-create clear
expectations of each
other
Starting with a Shared Vision
Discovery Kickoff
o Understand the
process
o Establish a clear goal
for the discovery
@anjalileon

17. Hurdle #2:
The Established SAFe Framework
@anjalileon

18. Manage flow with WIP (Work in Progress) limits
Leverage Portfolio & Program Kanban
Discovery (Features)
Portfolio Kanban Program Kanban
Discovery (Epics)
@anjalileon

19. Hurdle #3:
A Distributed Organization
@anjalileon

20. Invest in the right tools
Internal
Wiki for
Blogging
Online collaboration via MURAL - a game changer!
Everyone can engage
Templates, Virtual stickies and Dot Voting
Video conferencing
Break out rooms
Recording
Manage artifacts
Manage the process
@anjalileon

21. Hurdle #4:
Capacity of Key Participants
@anjalileon

22. Be Strategic About Discovery
● Align discoveries to roadmap and organizational
needs
● Establish WIP limits
● Provide space to mindfully engage
@anjalileon

23. Reflection:
1 min
What hurdles do you
expect to encounter
with a Discovery
process in your
organization?
@anjalileon

24. 27
Feedback from the Team
“What a manual nightmare
these folks are going
through. I can't believe we
make them do that!”
Sue (Business Stakeholder)
I had no idea that’s
how the user did that -
it’s awful, we need to
fix it!
Joe ( Dev Lead)
“This allows customers to drive the process,
not deal with the byproduct. I could do this all
day, everyday”
Damon (Product Manager)
"Those reports are nuts. I
would die a little inside if I had
to do that every day."
April (Business
Stakeholder)
“I don't like how you have
roped me into this and how
much I am enjoying it!
Damn you Damon!!!”
KATIE (Business SME)
"That was my first time talking to
someone who uses our stuff. I hope to
do that much more often. It was
enlightening. Usually we just do what
we think is a good idea and hope they
like it."
Robert ( Dev Lead)
@anjalileon

25. Feedback from Customers
“I want this now”
“This will help us do so much
more for our students”
“OMG, is this for real?!?”
“Every question I have, you’ve
already thought about”
@anjalileon

26. Sage Advice
Ø Fall in love with the Problem, not the Solution
Ø Ensure a clear goal for the Discovery
Ø Invite and engage the customer to co-create the solution
Ø Apply both data and judgement to inform your decisions
Ø Use Scrum to plan and collaborate on Discovery Activities

27. Self-reflection:
What are YOU doing to ensure you
are building the right thing?
@anjalileon

28. © Pragmatic Project Leadership, LLC
Anjali Leon
Agility Coach, Educator & Strategic Advisor
Founder and Principal, PPL Coach
Founder of Empowering South Florida Women in Agile
www.ppl-coach.com
Email: aleon@ppl-coach.com
@anjalileon

29. 35
Resources
Online Resources:
● https://herbigt.com/product-discovery/
● https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/try-
design-thinking-scrum-powerful-
hybrid-agile-approach-yoshida/
● https://www.romanpichler.com/blog/pr
oduct-discovery-tips/
● https://philosophie.is/blog/how-to-set-
up-an-effective-product-discovery-
team
● https://www.producttalk.org/2017/02/
evolution-product-discovery/
● https://www.scaledagileframework.com
/lean-portfolio-management/
● Usability.gov—good material about diff
type of research methods and pro’s and
con’s on each
Books:
● The Lean Startup
● The Four Steps to the Epiphany
● Sprint: How to solve big problems
and test new ideas in just five days
● Change by Design: How design
thinking transforms organizations
and inspires innovation
● Jobs to be Done: Theory to Practice
● Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most
Important Goals with Objectives and
key Results
● What Customers Want: Using
Outcome-Driven Innovation to
Create Breakthrough Products and
Services