NYT Product Discovery Activity Guide

PRODUCTDISCOVERY
ACTIVITYGUIDE
HOWTOUSETHISGUIDE
1. Determine which milestone you’re currently trying to achieve: Are
you trying to better understand the product opportunity, your users,
the problem you need to solve? Do you need to validate that the
problem actually exists? Do you want to generate or narrow down
solution ideas? Are you ready to test your ideas? Are you trying to
figure out next steps, based on your user test findings?
2. Choose the combination of activities that will best suit your team’s
needs for your current milestone and help you move forward
confidently to the next one. (If your team feels they need more
clarity on a specific issue after completing an exercise, build upon it
with a complementary one.)
3. Most of all, keep an open mind, and feel free to try new activities!
What would you like to accomplish during this session?
Understand the Opportunity
Understand the User
Understand the Problem
Confirm the Problem
Identify Possible Solutions
Narrow the Field
Create Tests
Validate with Users
Pivot on Learnings
Create MVP & Stories
The Product Discovery Activity Guide is intended to inspire
Product Discovery teams to innovate and work together in
smarter, leaner ways. This collection consists of tools, practices,
and activities that can be used in various combinations, tailored
to your team’s specific goals. Many of these activities were
inspired by game-like exercises and the creative thinking
approaches used by many technology start-ups.
This guide was created by Jim Lamiell, Al Ming, Priya Ollapally, Josh Turk
and Christine Yom of the Product Architecture Group.
We’re still working on making this Activity Guide as useful as possible
for our Product Discovery teams.
If you have feedback, please send it to: nyt.tech.productarchitecture@nytimes.com,
or just stop by and let us know what you think!

UNDERSTANDTHEOPPORTUNITY
OpportunityAssessmentReview
Review the Product Opportunity Assessment with the team and
stakeholders to ensure that everyone understands the problem,
the context, and how we will measure success.
Review the Product Opportunity Assessment with the team and stakeholders
to ensure everyone understands the problem, the context, and how you will
measure success. It describes the problem to be solved, and usually includes
a business justification. Its purpose is either to a) prevent the company from
wasting time and money on poor opportunities, or b) understand what is
required to succeed for those that are good opportunities.
This review session is an opportunity to elaborate on any points that are
unclear and need further detail. The team also validates that the prospective
product or feature seems feasible from a technical or operational perspective.
Instructions
1. Describe the session goals and the outcome of the session.
2. The team reviews each area of the Product Opportunity Assessment.
3. Everyone asks questions to create clarity on what you want to
accomplish.
4. Document the questions. Who had the question? What was the
question? What was the answer, if any? e.g. “Jane: What would this
need from a recommendation team? A: Unknown at this time.”
5. Document observations, suggestions, or problems. Who said it?
What was it (observation, suggestion, complaint, etc.)? Are any
action items needed?
Participants: Entire team Time: 1 hour+
Objective
CC Image courtesy of denkwerk GmbH on Flickr

BusinessModelCanvas
Visualize a new business model idea—or rethink your company’s
current business model—to highlight key drivers and create a
shared understanding.
The mapping of an existing business model, including its strengths and
weaknesses, is an essential starting point to improve your current model
and/or develop new future models. This lightweight tool is helpful when
starting a new business or creating a new product line to highlight key
risks and frame your work.
This is powerful for collaboratively visualizing a business model.
Individuals can also use this to quickly sketch out a business idea. At its
best, this exercise helps you develop strategic directions for the future
by outlining new and/or improved business models. At the very least, it
leads to a refined and shared understanding.
Instructions
Mapping business models works best when players work on a poster on the wall.
You will need:
• Large print of a Business Canvas Poster
• Sticky notes in different colors
• Flip chart markers
• Camera to capture results
There are several variations of the Business Model Canvas Poster. The one
described here is the most basic one, which is the mapping of an existing business
model, its assessment, and the formulation of improved or potential new business
models.
1. Start by letting players describe the different customer segments your
organization serves. Players should put up different color sticky notes on
the Canvas Poster for each segment. A group of customers represents a
distinct segment if they have distinct needs and you offer them distinct value
propositions (e.g. a newspaper serves readers and advertisers), or if they
require different channels, customer relationships, or revenue streams.
2. Players should map out the value propositions that your organization offers
each customer segment, using same color sticky notes for value propositions
and customer segments that go together. If a value proposition targets two
different customer segments, use sticky note colors of both.
3. Then players map out the remaining building blocks of your business model
with sticky notes. Always try to use the colors of the related customer
segments.
4. When the the whole business model is mapped, players can start assessing its
strengths and weaknesses by putting up green (strength) and red (weakness)
sticky notes alongside the strong and weak elements.
5. Based on the visualization of your mapped out business model, players can now
either try to improve the existing business model or generate new alternative
business models. Ideally, players use one or several additional Business Model
Canvas Posters to map out improved business models or new alternatives.
Gamestorming.com, Strategyzer.com, Leanstack
http://www.gamestorming.com/?s=business+model+canvas
http://leanstack.com/
Participants: 1-6 Time: 15 min-2 days
Objective
CC Image courtesy of szwerink on Flickr

LightningDemos
Take a look at how competitors’ products are solving
similar problems.
This exercise helps the team get a large amount of information on the
table and quickly build understanding.
During the exercise, everyone should be jotting down questions. Use
the “how might we” format to capture opportunities that might be
interesting to explore. For example, “How might we build trust?” or
“How might we figure out the user’s style?” Often, these end up being
extremely useful in next steps for the team.
Instructions
Look at competitors’ products. Try capping the discussion at 10 minutes
to keep things moving and help everyone pay attention. It can also be
helpful to look at non-competitive products that solve a similar kind
of problem in a different market. Everyone should be jotting down
questions on sticky notes. The “how might we” format can capture
opportunities that might be interesting to explore. For example: “How
might we build trust?” or “How might we figure out the user’s style?”
(Source: Google Ventures)
Google Ventures: http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-understandday-1
Participants: Entire team Time: 10 minutes
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Bill Roehl on Flickr

ReviewIndustry&MacroResearch
Know your markets, competitors, customer wants and needs,
and what it takes to be competitive in your market.
This exercise helps the team get a large amount of information on the
table and quickly build understanding.
During the exercise, everyone should be jotting down questions. Use
the “how might we” format to capture opportunities that might be
interesting to explore. For example, “How might we build trust?” or
“How might we figure out the user’s style?” Often, these end up being
extremely useful in next steps for the team.
Instructions
1. To understand your market and target audience, look at both primary
research from internal sources and secondary research from external
sources, such as industry business publications and market reports.
2. If you have existing internal user research for your product, be sure
to review it. If not, talk about whatever data you do know about your
customers.
3. Also look at any analytics you have, such as data on feature usage,
where customers drop off your site, and conversion rates.
4. Once you’ve gathered all relevant research, a mind-mapping exercise
could help organize your research inventory by getting it down on
paper, along with any notes you may have.
Google Ventures, http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-understandday-1
Participants: Each team member Time: 10 minutes
Objective
CC Image courtesy of UCL Institute of Education on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Proto-Personas
Develop a set of quick, ad hoc personas that depict
your customers (or those who are encountering this
situation or problem).
Proto-personas are a variant of the typical persona, which is usually
heavily researched. Your team starts with assumptions about who is
using your product or service and what is motivating them to do so, and
then does research to validate them. You want to capture everyone’s
assumptions and encapsulate the organization’s beliefs.
Proto-personas provide a starting point for evaluating ideas and early
design hypotheses. They help reinforce corporate awareness of the
customer’s point of view to ensure it’s included in strategic planning.
Coming to a group consensus on the personas helps everyone focus on
the customers and empathize with them.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Instructions
Persona Format
1. Sketch proto-personas on paper, using a hand-drawn quadrant.
2. Top left box: Persona’s name and role, with a rough sketch of him/her
3. Top right box: Basic demographic information, with a focus on information
that predicts a specific type of behavior
4. Bottom left box: User’s needs and frustrations with the current product or
situation, the specific pain points your product is trying to solve, and/or the
opportunity you’re trying to address
5. Bottom right box: Feature and solution ideas
Persona Creation Process
1. Start with a group brainstorm. Team members offer their opinions on who
the project should be targeting and how that would affect each potential
user’s use of the product.
2. Once the brainstorming is complete, narrow down the ideas to an initial
set of three or four personas you believe are most likely to be the target
audience.
3. Try to differentiate the personas around needs and roles, rather than by
demographic.
Persona Validation
Once your proto-personas are created and agreed upon, take them into the field
to begin validating their accuracy. As you learn from your ongoing research, you’ll
quickly find out how accurate your initial persona guesses are. This will inform you
on how to adjust your target audience and persona, which should be revamped
and rewritten as needed.
http://www.jeffgothelf.com/blog/lean-ux-book/#sthash.7aXWU9Tr.PcpUM1Un.dpbs
http://uxmag.com/articles/using-proto-personas-for-executive-alignment
Participants: 3-10 Time: 1 hour
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Rob Enslin on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
EmpathyMap
Understand your customers within a given context by
creating their profile based on what they think and
feel, see and hear, and say and do.
This exercise helps your group gain a deeper understanding of a
stakeholder in your business ecosystem (a client, prospect, partner,
etc.) within a given context, such as a buying decision or an experience
using a product.
The empathy map can be as simple or complex as you want to make
it. If you have a decent understanding of the person and context
you want to map, you should be able to make a rough empathy map
quickly. If you don’t understand the stakeholder very well, this exercise
can help identify gaps in understanding and illuminate the things you
don’t yet know.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Instructions
The exercise can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. You should be
able to make a rough empathy map quickly, if you have a decent understanding
of the person and context you want to map.
1. Start by drawing a circle to represent the person. Give it a name and some
identifying information, like a job title. It helps to think of a real person who
roughly fits the profile, and keep them in mind as you proceed. In keeping
with the idea of a “profile,” think of the circle as the profile of a person’s
head and fill in some details. You might want to add eyes, mouth, nose, and
maybe glasses or a hairstyle to differentiate the person from other profiles
you might want to create. These details will help you project yourself into
that person’s experience.
2. Determine a question you have for that stakeholder. What would you want
to ask them or understand about a situation in their life? For example, if you
want to understand a buying decision, you might ask “Why should I buy X?”
3. Divide the circle into sections that represent aspects of that person’s sensory
experience. What are they thinking, feeling, saying, doing, hearing? Label
the appropriate sections on the image.
4. Now it’s time for the “empathy” portion of the exercise. Try to project yourself
into that person’s experience and the context you want to explore. Start
filling in the diagram with real, tangible, sensory experiences. For example,
when filling in the “hearing” section, think of what the person might hear
and how they would hear it. In the “saying” section, write their thoughts as
they would express them; don’t use your own words. The point is to truly
understand and empathize with their situation so you can design a better
product or service.
5. Check yourself: Ask others to review your map, make suggestions, and
add details or context. The more a person can identify with the actual
stakeholder, the better.
Empathy Map poster template:
http://www.slideshare.net/AdilsonJardim/empathy-map-poster-3201288
http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/empathy-mapping/
Participants: 3-10 Time: 15–20 minutes
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Oliver Quinlan on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Pain-GainMap
Capture your users’ pains and gains to understand
what motivates and influences their decisions.
Many decisions often boil down to a person’s basic choices
between benefit and harm.
This exercise helps develop an understanding of your users’
motivations and decisions. By capturing how they perceive
benefit and harm with regard to a certain context, your group
may uncover the most relevant points to bring up in presenting to
your organization or to influence users’ decisions. This key person
may be the ultimate user of a product or may be the leader of an
organization whose approval is sought.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Instructions
1. Start by writing the key person’s name or creating a quick sketch of
him on a wall.
2. Ask about this person’s pains first by prompting the group to step
inside his mind and think and feel as he does. Capture the answers
on one side of the person:
• What does a bad day look like for him?
• What is he afraid of?
• What keeps him awake at night?
• What is he responsible for?
3. What obstacles stand in his way? A person’s gains can be the
inversion of the pain situation—or can go beyond. Capture these on
the opposite side by asking:
• What does this person want and aspire to?
• How does he measure success?
• Given the subject at hand, how could this person benefit?
• What can we offer this person?
4. Summarize and prioritize the top pains and gains from the
exercise. You can use them when developing presentations,
value propositions, or any other instance where you are trying to
influence a decision.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/pain-gain-map/
Participants: 3-10 Time: 10-15 minutes
Objective
CC Image courtesy of reway2007 on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
ValuePropositionCanvas
Map, think though, and discuss your value propositions and
how they match your customers’ needs.
This thinking and design tool helps you design Value Propositions
that match your customers’ needs and aids them in solving their
problems. The Value Proposition Canvas guides you to problem-
solution fit in a more structured, thoughtful way. It captures core
issues around customer problems and potential solutions.
The Value Proposition Canvas is based on two blocks from the
Business Model Canvas: the Value Proposition and the Customer
Segment. This exercise sketches out both in more detail with a
simple but powerful structure, which will allow for better strategic
conversations and prepare you for testing both building blocks.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Instructions
1. Before starting the canvas, sketch a profile of your target customers. First,
determine what they are trying to accomplish. This could be tasks they are
trying to perform and complete, problems they are trying to solve, or needs
they are trying to satisfy. Next, describe any negative emotions, costs, and
risks that they might experience before, during, and after getting the job
done. Then describe the benefits they expect, desire, or would be surprised
by, which include utility, social gains, positive emotions, and cost savings.
2. Once the team has completed the customer profile, begin creating the
Value Proposition Canvas. Divide a flip-chart sheet of paper into three
sections: Products & Services, Gain Creators, and Pain Relievers.
See an example of the template:
http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/downloads/value_proposition_canvas.pdf
3. In the Products & Services section: List all the products and services your
value proposition is built around. Which products and services do you offer
that help your customer get either a functional, social, or emotional job
done, or help him/her satisfy basic needs? Rank all products and services
according to their importance to your customer—are they crucial or trivial?
4. In the Gain Creators section: Describe how your products and services
create customer gains. How do they create benefits your customer
expects, desires or would be surprised by, including functional utility, social
gains, positive emotions, and cost savings?
5. In the Pain Relievers section: Describe how your products and services
alleviate customer pains. How do they eliminate or reduce negative
emotions, undesired costs and situations, and risks your customer
experiences or could experience before, during, and after getting the job
done?
6. You can use the Value Proposition Canvas like the Business Model Canvas:
plot it as a poster, post it up on the wall, then use sticky notes to start
sketching.
Strategyzer.com, Strategyzer AG
http://businessmodelalchemist.com/blog/2012/08/achieve-product-market-fit-with-our-brand-new-value-
proposition-designer.html
http://businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas/vpc?_ga=1.216540690.564012849.1430337420
Participants: 3-10 Time: 45 min–1.5 hours
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Epicantus on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
CustomerJourneyMap
Illustrate the steps your customers go through when
engaging with your product or the company, and how
they feel at various points along the way.
The customer journey map is an oriented graph that describes the
journey of a user by representing the different touchpoints that
characterize their step-by-step interaction with your product or
company.
The journey map is meant to engender a shared reference of the
experience and consensus of both the good and the bad parts of it.
It is also a means to something actionable—ideally something to
design around—and not an end in and of itself. Your map should feel
like a catalyst, not a conclusion.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Instructions
Your team will be describing a possible scenario or mapping the experience for
an existing product or service.
1. You will need a blank journey worksheet that shows the different stages of
the customer journey (this is a rough timeline).
2. Choose a persona or create a new proto-persona from scratch.
3. Define a goal for this persona.
4. Look at what’s happening at each stage and the touchpoints that allow the
user to reach this goal.
5. Describe the experience flow across the different stages and touchpoints.
Some facets you may want to document in your map are:
Actions: What is the customer doing at each stage? What actions are
they taking to move themselves on to the next stage? (Don’t list what your
company or partners such as retailers are doing here. That will come later
when we look at touchpoints).
Motivations: Why is the customer motivated to keep going to the next
stage? What emotions are they feeling? Why do they care?
Questions: What are the uncertainties, jargon, or other issues preventing
the customer from moving to the next stage?
Barriers: What structural, process, cost, implementation, or other barriers
stand in the way of moving on to the next stage?
6. After the journey has been mapped, use it to highlight the gaps, pain points
and opportunities of the experience, both from the perspective of the user
and the company.
This is not the only way to create a customer journey. You may want to use a
different lens to look at each stage or the journey, or perhaps treat the journey
as a storyboard.
Service Design Tools; Harvard Business Review; Adaptive Path
Objective
Image courtesy of Richard McMurray/www.service-this.com

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
JobStories
Identify opportunities for growth by deconstructing
a job that customers are trying to get done.
Writing Job Stories is a powerful way of evaluating the circumstances
that arise in customers’ lives. Customers make decisions about what
products to use because they find themselves with a problem they
would like to solve.
With an understanding of the “job” for which customers find
themselves “hiring” a product or service, we can more accurately
develop and market products and features well-tailored to what
customers are already trying to do.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Instructions
When writing job stories it’s important to focus on things such as context,
causality and motivations instead of assumptions, subjectiveness, personas and
implementations.
We start by framing each design problem as a job, focusing on the triggering
event or situation, the progress and motivation, and the intended outcome:
[ Situation statement ] + [ Progress statement ] + [ Outcome statement ] .
Example: [When I’m running late for an appt & worried that I won’t be able to
eat before], [I want something filling to eat on the go], [so that I have the energy
to perform].
Tips for writing effective job stories:
Refine A Situation By Adding Contextual Information
The more context we have for the situation, the easier it will be to craft a
working solution which also handles any anxieties which can push a customer
away from using a product or feature..
Job Stories Come From Real People Not Personas
Job stories should be derived from real customer feedback. You must talk
to real people and uncover all the anxieties and contexts which were in play
when they used your or a competitor’s product. Additionally, comb through
any existing research you have on your users, pulling out any contextual or
emotional data that might aid you in writing your job stories.
Design Modular Job Stories Which Features (solutions) Can Plug Into
When writing job stories, it’s important not to commingle the job with solutions.
Doing so makes it difficult to figure out what went wrong when customers reject
our ideas. Was your persona wrong? Was the feature wrong? Was it the wrong
feature for the persona?
Add Forces To Motivations
In the job story format of Situation — Motivations — Expected Outcomes, the
Motivation stage can be enhanced by adding pull and push forces. Adding
forces to a motivation is much like adding context to a situation. It’s the
emotional component of the job story. By getting in touch with the emotions the
customer is feeling we can design solutions that mitigate them.
http://alanklement.com/5-tips-job-story
Participants: Entire team Time: 1 hour
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Charles Knowles on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
EthnographicFieldStudies
Sit back and silently observe customers use your
product in their natural environment.
To fully understand your customers, witness how they behave in their
natural environment while interacting with your particular product or
service.
This study is largely a hands-off, observation-based process,
resulting in insights that provide a rich and nuanced understanding
of the role a product plays in the user’s life. At the end, the team
should be able to turn their new wealth of qualitative learnings into
approaches for how to understand and potentially address the user’s
unique needs and pain points.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Who is involved?
Ethnographic field studies require a recruiter to contact and source
potential participants; a note-taker for conducting the field study through
observation; and a team dedicated at the end of the study to analyzing
results and applying qualitative insights to the next milestone.
How is it done?
1. Identify the ideal target user and location for observation and recruit
based on those factors.
2. Develop a field guide, which for this kind of research may include
instructions for observing the participant and particular behaviors to
look out for if they arise.
3. Conduct the ethnography with each recruit individually, acting as
the note-taker and quiet observer in their natural environment. The
sessions can last from minutes to hours. Be sure to jot down any
potentially surprising or unexpected actions, phrasing, or attitudes.
4. After the completion of these interviews, the team will likely spend
several days combing through the participant responses, highlighting
particularly interesting answers or observations, and collecting them
into recommendations for addressing these users’ needs and wants.
Objective
Participants: 10+ Effort: High Time: Weeks
CC Image courtesy of Jens Schott Knudsen on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
ContextualInquiryInterviews
Observe users interacting with your product or
prototype, asking probing questions into the
how and why of their actions.
When needing to understand the particular context in which your
customers interact with your product or service, employ contextual
inquiry interviews to both observe and probe into the specific behaviors
you’re curious about.
These interviews should include a healthy balance of questions delving
into thoughts and emotions at moments of interest, as well as passive
observation of the participant demonstrating how the product or
prototype is used to achieve their goals. After the interviews, the team
should be able to combine responses and observations into key insights
that will drive understanding of user, context, and solution.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Who is involved?
Contextual inquiry interviews require a recruiter to find the appropriate
participants based on the research goals; a moderator who is capable of
understanding and accomplishing that healthy mix of probing questions
and passive observation during the interview; a note-taker during the
interview, to relieve that burden from the moderator; and a team to comb
through, analyze, and identify learnings for understanding the user or
proposed solution at the end of the process.
How is it done?
1. Identify several appropriate types of users to question and observe
— those either currently using your product, or exhibiting the sorts
of needs and behaviors that you’re interested in with other products
— and recruit them for in-house interviews. If the team would like
to engage with users directly in the field instead, spend this time
thinking of ideal locations for observing and interviewing participants
(outside a store, in a cafe, etc.).
2. Create an interview guide for the sorts of questions you would like to
pose to participants, as well as key actions or emotions to watch for
during observation.
3. Conduct the interviews with the interview guide in-hand. Be sure to
have the note-taker record extensive notes during the interviews,
even if you’re in the field, so the moderator can focus on engaging
with the participant and responding to facial cues.
4. Review the notes as a team after all the interviews. Pick out insights
that can identify any opportunities to solve your user’s needs or
problems, or if testing a prototype, determine whether it was validated
through user interaction in context.
Objective
CC Image courtesy of K2_UX on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
DiaryStudies
Ask customers to keep a daily diary of not just
how they use your product, but also their digital
lives and habits.
Diaries offer a wide range of views into the lives of your target user
because the participants recall their usage, behavior, and attitudes
while using the product in their natural context.
Participants are asked to keep a written or pictorial log of how they
interact with, respond to, and feel about a product or service over
time (usually a week or so), followed by a summary one-on-one
interview to discuss any recurring patterns or follow-up questions.
The results of a diary study require a final synthesis and analysis
to understand the user, their motivations, and the broad needs and
pain points that exist in their lives.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Who is involved?
Diary studies require a recruiter to both source the right kinds of
participants, and schedule emails for reminding them about the diary
exercises and/or new writing prompts; a moderator and note-taker for
the summary one-on-one interviews to follow-up on interesting entries;
and the team to comb through the diary entries and interview notes to
uncover key insights that inform the next milestone of the process.
How is it done?
1. Determine as a team the form the diary will take (digital, pen and
paper, etc.), how delivery of entries will be accomplished (email, mail,
etc.), and schedule for writing the entries (daily, hourly, etc.). Follow
this conversation up with a discussion of what questions or writing
prompts you’d like to pose to participants.
2. Recruit participants based on their habits, usage of your product, and
willingness to maintain a consistent diary record.
3. Ask the participants to start the diary with the first prompt, once both
the mechanics and recruitment pool have been achieved. Keep in
mind: if certain participants fail to respond or adequately answer
questions in their entries, don’t hesitate to reach out and correct any
deviance from expected results.
4. After the diary period has ended (from a couple days to a couple
weeks), conduct summary interviews with each participant individually.
5. Sit down as a team and review the interview notes and diary entries to
pick out useful qualitative insights on how participants currently use
your product or similar competitors, and what underserved problems
or needs exist in their lives.
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Kévin Couette on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
FocusGroups
Have a conversation between you and a group of
your customers to understand their attitudes toward
your product.
Focus groups are most valuable as guided discussions, between
a moderator and a diverse collection of target users, to identify
expectations and ideas around a particular product or service.
Keep in mind: focus groups are only useful when trying to assess
user attitudes and perceptions toward a product; they cannot,
however, determine usability, largely because participants can be
easily swayed by each other or rely on pure speculation to answer
questions on product usage. Find valuable insights from a focus
group’s results, but attempt to further validate them with individual
participants through one-on-one interviews.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Who is involved?
Focus groups require a recruiter to take careful steps to ensure that
participants of the focus group represent a diverse selection of actual
users (to prevent an echo-chamber effect); a moderator who can
effectively guide the conversation and give every participant a chance
to be heard; a note-taker that sits outside the room and listens in, or a
video recorder that can be reviewed afterward; and the team to analyze
results and propose next steps in understanding the user base.
How is it done?
1. Spend the time and effort to find the right kinds of participants for the
focus group: diverse, communicative, and willing to participate.
2. Create an interview guide, with potential questions or conversation
points, to loosely follow with participants.
3. During the focus group, have the moderator pay close attention to
points in the conversation when participants are exhibiting too much
influence over others, are relying too much on pure conjecture, or
tend to be quiet and evade questions; course-correct when needed,
but at the same time try to intervene as little as possible. Ensure that
a note-taker or video recorder is capturing results as well.
4. Reconvene after the focus group to pick out insightful ideas or
responses from the group and decide on the next steps to validate
these through individual interviews or other research methods.
Objective
Participants: 10+ Effort: Medium Time: Days
CC Image courtesy of BSA Badalona on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
SiteInterceptSurveys
Present customers in the midst of using your
product with a short, engaging survey.
Short questionnaires called site intercept surveys can be administered
to real users, during moments when they are using the team’s website
or application, to get a sense of their attitudes about or behavior with
the product.
With enough responses — usually one hundred or so; keep in mind
that users should be able to opt out of the survey — the team can
gain knowledge of who uses the product, why they use it, and whether
it served their needs properly at the time and in the context the survey
was taken.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Who is involved?
Site intercept surveys require a team to determine what sorts of site or
application behavior should qualify a user to receive the survey prompt,
as well as what questions should be in the survey itself; a mechanism
that allows the delivery of surveys to users (e.g. email; Qualtrics); and
again, a team to compile and analyze the results.
How is it done?
1. Develop a research plan to get at what your goals are in this phase
of product discovery, a set of questions that can provide direction for
addressing those goals, and a list of behavioral criteria for selecting
users on the site or application to receive this survey.
2. Determine how to build the survey and deploy it to users currently
using your product; depending on the complexity of the survey, you
may need additional help from other teams.
3. Once the survey has been delivered and enough responses have been
received (ideally around one hundred or so), sit down as a team, look
at the distribution of answers, and uncover areas for improvement or
interesting bits of feedback from your users.
Objective
Participants: 100+ Effort: Low Time: Hours
CC Image courtesy of plings_005 on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
On-the-StreetSurveys
Hit the streets as a team and ask passers-by to take
a moment out of their day to fill out a short survey.
When a team is wrestling with questions around general consumer
behavior, on-the-street surveys present a quick opportunity to partly
validate those assumptions with real people through a short questionnaire.
While some teams may already have detailed user research about their
existing customers, on-the-street surveys can offer easy progress for
those struggling with understanding whether their assumptions about their
product or user are even remotely correct. These types of surveys should
produce a few qualitative insights and quotes, acting as a compass for
how to further validate the team’s assumptions about the customer.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Who is involved?
On-the-street surveys require a suitable location for doing on-the-street
surveys (parks, malls, and other places of leisure are good spots, while
transportation hubs or areas with high activity are unsuitable); and a
team to get out of the building, engage with the general population, and
discuss survey responses and interesting quotes from participants.
How is it done?
1. Create a short survey, taking a maximum of five minutes to administer,
with a healthy mix of demographic (age, employment, commute, etc.)
and open-ended questions (how and why, rather than yes and no).
2. Get out of the building! Keep in mind: many people may decline your
request to take the survey, so do not feel discouraged if this happens
often. The team should aim at around ten or so survey responses.
3. After the surveys have been completed, sit down as a team and
review the responses to pick out compelling quotes and decide which
assumptions have been partly validated or invalidated.
Objective
Participants: 10+ Effort: Medium Time: Hours
CC Image courtesy of rjt on Flickr

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
ModeratedUsabilityStudy
Pose tasks and questions to your users to see how successfully
they can interact with your product or prototype.
A usability study focuses on a user’s ability to achieve a goal or complete
a task while using a product or prototype, and gives a sense of whether a
user will find the provided functionality helpful or attractive.
These studies generally fall into two categories—remote or lab—
depending on whether the study participant and moderator are performing
tasks and receiving feedback in the same location (like an in-house
facility) or separately (via web interface or phone). This method should
produce recorded notes, audio, or video that the team can later analyze for
opportunities to improve the existing experience.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Who is involved?
Moderated usability studies require a recruiter to find participants that are
willing to be interviewed while using the product either in-person and in the
building or through webcam; a moderator during the usability test, to issue
instructions and follow-up questions; a note-taker or video recorder to jot
down interesting remarks or observations; and a team to synthesize the
results and determine next steps.
How is it done?
1. Create a testing script for instructions that the moderator will follow
during the session, including tasks for the participant to complete or
questions to answer. Don’t be too detailed, however; moderators can
course-correct when needed during the session.
2. Ensure that the product or prototype is fully accessible to the
participant, either via an in-house device or through a network outside
the building.
3. Recruit participants who are either willing to come in-house and sit
with the moderator, or have the necessary equipment to receive and
record audio and visual remotely.
4. During the sessions, have the moderator run through the test script,
but also deviate when interesting remarks or observations have been
made; have the note-taker listen into the session, or record for later
usage.
5. Sit down as a team when all participants have been interviewed,
and synthesize results to see whether the product or prototype was
successfully usable.
Objective
Participants: 10+ Effort: High Time: Days

UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
UnmoderatedUsabilityStudy
Record users interacting with your product or
prototype through webcam or screen recording to
see how well they can perform tasks.
A usability study focuses on a user’s ability to achieve a goal or complete a
task while using a product or prototype, and gives a sense of whether a user
will find the provided functionality helpful or attractive.
Unmoderated studies are generally remote and unavailable to the team until
the participant has completed the series of tasks requested by the team;
because of a higher margin for error, this kind of study should be limited
in scope, focusing on a few specific features. This method should produce
recorded audio or video of the participant’s screen and voice, which the team
can later analyze for opportunities to improve the existing experience.
UNDERSTANDTHEUSER
Who is involved?
Unmoderated usability studies require a third-party provider who will
both recruit suitable candidates who are in their participant pool and
who are capable of communicating without a moderator, as well as
deliver and record the session for use afterward; and a team who will
take the recorded audio or video and synthesize results to uncover new
insights and decide next steps.
How is it done?
1. Create a testing script for instructions that the participants will follow
by themselves during the session, including tasks for the participant
to complete or questions to answer. Be as detailed as possible, due
to the lack of moderator.
participant through a network outside the building.
3. Administer the usability tests through the third-party provider, who
will be recruiting and delivering the instructions/questions to them
remotely.
4. Sit down as a team when all participants have been recorded, and
synthesize results to see whether the product or prototype was
Objective

UNDERSTANDTHEPROBLEM
ProblemHypotheses
Determine and state your most important
assumptions about the user problem.
Your vision for a product opportunity is a series of untested hypotheses
that need to be proven. Before you can test what you think you know,
you need to write it down — it starts with stating the assumptions
your team is making about the problem. What problem or need are
you solving for the business, product, or user? Why do you think the
problem exists? What do you think are your customers’ biggest pains?
Once you have determined your most important assumptions about the
user problem, you will be able to validate whether or not they are true
by talking to your customers.
Instructions
1. On a flip-chart sheet of paper or whiteboard, write down the
problem or user need you are trying to solve.
2. Each participant should have a pad of sticky notes. Ask the
participants to think about any assumptions they currently have
about why this problem exists from the user’s perspective.
3. Take 5 minutes to have participants silently write down all their
assumptions, one assumption per sticky note.
4. After everyone has written their assumptions, put everyone’s sticky
notes under the problem statement you wrote at the beginning of
the session.
5. Once all the sticky notes have been posted, start grouping similar
items into clusters.
6. For each cluster, write a statement or category that captures its
theme on a new sticky note. These represent the team’s problem
hypotheses.
7. Have the group determine which hypotheses are the most important.
This will serve as a starting point to get out of the building and talk
to customers in order to validate which (if any) of them are true.
The Startup Owner’s Manual, by Steve Blank
http://leanstack.com/customer-development-checklist-for-my-web-startup-part-1/
Participants: Entire team Time: 45–60 minutes
Objective

5W’s
Answer the key questions of who, what, where,
when, and why to understand the context of the
problem you’re trying to solve.
This game helps the team understand the context of a problem more
deeply by answering the fundamental questions about the problem:
who, what, where, when, and why. Employees often come to meetings
with widely different levels of knowledge around a problem. No one
knows the information better than the team members themselves, so
this gives everyone a chance to externalize and share what’s in their
minds. It also allows players to unearth questions they have about the
problem. This game sheds some light on a problem, project, or initiative
so that team members have a shared knowledge of the problem they
are trying to solve, with fewer lingering questions.
Instructions
1. In a large white space visible to all the players, write the problem
and the following words as headers across the top: WHO (are we
solving it for)?, WHAT (is the problem we are trying to solve)?,
WHERE (is it happening)?, WHEN (is it happening)?, and WHY (is
it important to solve it)?.
2. Tell the players that the goal of the game is to understand any and
all questions around the problem. Give all players access to sticky
notes and markers.
3. Start with the question WHO?. Give the players 5 minutes to silently
write down as many items or questions as they can that begin with
the word WHO.
4. Ask the players to post their sticky notes in the white space under
WHO?, then ask a couple of volunteers to cluster them according
to topical similarity.
5. Repeat this process for the remaining four header questions.
6. You may want to write emergent themes near each cluster. This
is also helpful for the players to reinforce that they have shared
concerns. The themes should be one- to three-word phrases that
summarize the general content of the clusters.
7. When the meeting closes, gather all of the questions so that
leadership has the opportunity to review them later and respond
to important questions that weren’t covered during the meeting.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-any-meeting/help-me-understand/
Objective

DrawtheProblem
Do quick drawings to define the problem in a
simple, clear, and compelling way.
Problems that are vague or misunderstood have a harder time getting
prioritized and therefore go unaddressed and unsolved. Meetings
that address problem-solving often skip this critical step: defining the
problem in a way that is not only clear but also compelling enough to
make people care about solving it.
This short drawing exercise at the beginning of a meeting will help
participants engage in defining the challenge in a simplified form. This
is a first step in bringing your group together under a common purpose
and elevate the problem to become something you care to solve.
Instructions
1. Each participant should have a large index card or letter-sized
piece of paper. After introducing the topic of the meeting, ask the
participants to think about the problem they are here to solve. As
they do so, ask them to write a list of items helping to explain the
problem. For example, they may think about a “day in the life” of
the problem or an item that represents the problem as a whole.
2. After a few minutes of this thinking and reflection, ask the
participants to flip over their paper and draw a picture of the
problem, as they would explain it to a peer. They may draw a simple
diagram or something more metaphorical; there are no prizes or
punishments for good or bad artistry. The drawing should simply
assist in explaining the problem.
3. When everyone is finished, have the participants post their
drawings on the wall and explain them to each other. While the
group shares, note any common elements. After the exercise, the
group should reflect on the similarities and differences, and work
toward a shared understanding of what the problem looks like to
each other.
This warm-up does not result in a problem definition that will satisfy a
product backlog; rather, it engages participants in defining the challenge
in a simplified form. It is a first step in bringing a group together under
a common purpose, elevating the problem above the noise to become
something they care to solve.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/draw-the-problem/
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Mike Rohde on Flickr

Fishbowl
Focus on listening to have a more meaningful
conversation—one group discusses the problem, while the
other group listens and observes.
At meetings, there are often stakeholders who aren’t familiar with
others’ perspectives or aren’t accustomed to listening to each other
without offering an immediate response. In these scenarios, it can be
difficult for people to engage in a rich and meaningful conversation.
This exercise helps activate attention and engage skills that have
become rusty for many: listening, observing, and being accountable for
our observations. It primes your listening and observing skills so a more
substantive conversation can take place. It may look like the action is
happening with the speaking participants, but it is actually happening
with the observers.
Instructions
1. Before the meeting, think of a topic that could be served by a group
discussion and write down questions associated with it. Create a handout
for the observers to record the major points they hear from the speaking
players and any evidence they hear that supports each point.
2. Find a room with a good amount of open space and clear out anything
other than chairs. Arrange the chairs in two concentric circles—the inner
circle seats the players engaged in conversation; the outer circle seats the
players acting as observers.
3. Introduce the game to the group and make it clear that this is a listening
and observing exercise. Assign “observer” or “player” status to each
person. Give everyone a pen and handout, which will only be used in the
observer role. Ask the participants to sit in the circle for their assigned role.
4. Announce the topic and have the speaking players discuss it for 15
minutes. Use the questions you generated before the meeting to guide
the conversation. Make sure the speakers know that their responsibility is
simply to converse. Make sure the observers know that their role is to pay
attention and write down all discussion points and evidence that come out
of the conversation.
5. When 15 minutes are up, ask the group to switch seats and switch roles.
Then start another 15-minute discussion on the same topic or a different
one.
6. After both conversations have completed, ask for volunteers to share the
information they gathered and to describe their experiences on the inner
versus outer circle.
7. Optional: Have the group talk about their experience of being silent and
paying attention. What was difficult about it? What was easy? How did it
affect their perception of the topic and the other players? Use the Fishbowl
exercise as a segue to a heightened give-and-take between stakeholders.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-opening/fishbowl/
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Travis Isaacs on Flickr

TheFiveWhys
Discover the root cause of a problem by drilling down
below the surface to relate it to its context.
Problems are tackled more sustainably when they’re addressed at the
source.
This exercise helps to relate a problem to its context so your group can
see the bigger picture. The goal is to move beyond the surface of the
problem and discover the root cause. By reading more between the
lines, you will gain meaningful insights into the source of a problem and
get the greatest leverage out of solving it.
Instructions
1. Before the meeting, choose a problem your team needs to evaluate. Write the
problem in an area visible to all the group members. Try to draw something to
represent it.
2. Distribute sticky notes to each player and ask them to number five of them 1
through 5.
3. Ask the players to review the problem statement and ask themselves WHY it’s a
problem. Encourage them to be honest and to write the first thing that comes to
mind each time they ask “Why?”. If they jump immediately to the perceived root of
the problem, they may miss the opportunity to see the stages.
4. Have the players write their first response on sticky note 1.
5. Tell the players to ask themselves WHY the answer on sticky note 1 is true and
write their next response on sticky note 2.
6. Next, tell the players to ask WHY the answer on sticky note 2 is true and write the
response on sticky note 3.
7. Repeat this until every numbered sticky note has a response on it.
8. Below the problem statement, write the word “Why?” five times in a column; draw
lines to create columns for each player’s set of notes. Ask the players to post their
responses on the wall, starting with 1 at the top and ending with 5 at the bottom.
9. Reviewthe“Why”columnswiththegroupandnotecommonalitiesanddifferences.
10. Allow for discussion.
11. Rewrite the problem statement on a sheet of flip-chart paper. Work with the group
to build consensus on which of the five “Whys” offer the most meaningful insight
into the problem. Ask a volunteer to rewrite the “Whys”—one per sticky note—as
the group agrees on them. Put the stickies in a final column under the problem
statement. If you have time, discuss “what’s next.”
12. Note: Five Whys is a good start, but many problems require more or less
interrogation to get to the root. Ask “Why?” until you feel the group is getting
somewhere. Build longer WHY columns if necessary, and keep going until the
players get to meaningful insights.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-problem-solving/the-5-whys/
Participants: 5-10 Time: 1+ hours
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Luke and Kate Bosman on Flickr

ChallengeCards
Identify and think through challenges, problems, and
potential pitfalls in a product, service, or strategy, then
match them with solutions.
The goal of this exercise is to improve a product or strategy by thinking
through various scenarios and alternatives. By brainstorming features
and strengths of the product or solution, along with potential problems
or challenges, teams match up challenges with solutions to tell a
collaborative story.
Instructions
1. Divide each group into two teams:
• The “solution team” silently brainstorms features and strengths of
the product or solution.
• The “challenge team” silently brainstorms potential problems
or challenges and writes them on index cards, one problem or
challenge per card.
2. When play commences, the two teams work together to tell a
collaborative story:
• The challenge team picks a card from the deck and plays it on
the table, describing a scene or event where the issue might
realistically arise.
• The solution team must then pick a card from their deck that
addresses the challenge.
3. If the solution team has a solution, they get a point, and if they don’t,
the challenge team gets a point.
4. The teams then work together to design a card that addresses that
challenge.
5. Play continues in this fashion, challenge followed by solution
followed by challenge, and so on, until the story or scenario reaches
a conclusion.
6. Optional: By turning the exercise into a competition as well as a
storytelling game, players are more likely to get engaged and
immerse themselves in the scenarios. Keeping it lighthearted and
fun will increase the energy. It shouldn’t feel like work.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/challenge-cards/
Participants: 4-10 Time: 30 min-1hour
Objective
By tableatny via Wikimedia Commons (originally posted to Flickr as BXP135677)

PosterSession
Communicate ideas and core concepts using images in a
poster format to summarize a challenge or larger topic for
further discussion.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what would 50 pictures be
worth? What if 50 people could present their most passionate ideas to
each other—without any long-winded explanation?
This exercise accelerates the presentation process by breaking it down
into a simplified format. It forces everyone to think about the best way
to compile and communicate their ideas. The goal is to create a set
of compelling images that summarize a challenge or topic for further
discussion. Creating this set might be an “opening act” that sets the
stage for choosing an idea to pursue, or it might be a way to index ideas
for a large topic.
Instructions
1. Everyone will need ample supplies for creating their poster. Flip charts and
markers are sufficient, but consider bringing other school supplies, such as
stickers, magazines for cutting up, and physical objects.
2. Start by framing the challenge. In any given large group, you could say: “There
are more good ideas in everyone’s heads than there is time to understand and
address them. By creating posters that explain the ideas, we’ll have a better
idea of what’s out there and what we might work on.”
3. The participants’ task is to create a poster that explains their topic. There are
two constraints:
1) It must be self-explanatory. Could someone understand it without
having you explain it?
2) It must be visual. Words are good, but text alone will not be enough
to get people’s attention or help them understand. Participants may be
helped by thinking about three kinds of explanation:
• Before and After: Describe “why” someone should care in terms
of the today and tomorrow of the idea.
• System: Describe the “what” of an idea in terms of its parts and
their relationships.
• Process: Describe the “how” of an idea in terms of a sequence
of events.
4. Give participants 20 minutes to create their posters. When they have finished,
post them on the wall to create a “gallery.” Ask the group to circulate and walk
the gallery. Some posters will attract and capture more attention than others.
From here, it may be worthwhile to have participants dot vote (see Dot Voting)
to decide what ideas to pursue further.
Optional: The posters may be created in small groups. In this case, it’s important
for the group to decide ahead of time what their topic will be and to give more time
to come to a consensus on what they will draw and how they will draw it. A small
group of experts may create posters to explain their different points of view at the
start of a meeting, and to make their models of the world, their vocabulary, and
their interests clear and explicit.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-any-meeting/poster-session/
Participants: 10-100 Time: 20 minutes
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Swedish Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010 on Flickr

SWOTAnalysis
Evaluate your team’s likelihood of success relative to an objective
by examining strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, dangers, and
conditions that may affect your future.
In business, it can be easier to have certainty around what you want,
but more difficult to understand what’s impeding you from getting it.
The SWOT Analysis is a long-standing technique of looking at what’s
working well for the business and what could be improved upon, with
respect to a desired end state.
This exercise provides the group with the opportunity to gauge
approaching opportunities and dangers, and assess the seriousness of
the conditions that affect the future. By understanding those conditions,
the group can influence what comes next.
Instructions
1. Before the meeting, write “Desired End State” and draw a picture of what it
might look like on a piece of flip-chart paper.
2. Create a 4-square quadrant using 4 sheets of flip-chart paper. Create more
quadrants if you think the complexity of the discussion and the number of
players warrant it.
3. Top left quadrant: Write the word “STRENGTHS” and draw a picture depicting
that concept. Players should take 5–10 minutes to quietly generate ideas
about strengths with respect to the desired end state and write one idea per
sticky note.
4. Bottom left quadrant: Write “WEAKNESSES” and draw a picture depicting it.
Take 5–10 minutes to write ideas about weaknesses.
5. Top right quadrant: Write “OPPORTUNITIES” and draw a picture. Take 5–10
minutes to write ideas about opportunities.
6. Bottom right quadrant: Write “THREATS” and draw a picture. Take 5–10
minutes to write ideas about perceived threats.
7. Post everyone’s sticky notes near the corresponding quadrants.
8. Starting with STRENGTHS, sort the ideas based on their affinity to each other
and cluster them together until you have clustered the majority of them. Place
outliers separate from the clusters but still in playing range. Repeat this for
the other categories in this order: WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES, and
THREATS.
9. After the clustering is complete, have the group create a broad category
for each smaller cluster. Write the categories in the quadrants as the group
agrees on them.
10. Have the players dot vote on 2-3 categories in each square for the items they
believe are most relevant. Highlight the ones with the most votes.
11. As a group, discuss implications around the desired end state. Evaluate
weaknesses and threats positively, like their presence is doing a favor. Ask
questions, like “What if our competition didn’t exist?” and “How can this threat
make the organization stronger?”
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-fresh-thinking-and-ideas/swot-analysis/
http://www.innovationgames.com/swot-analysis-game/
Participants: 5-20 Time: 1-2 hours
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Ahmed Hashim on Flickr

PostthePath
Define your group’s existing process at a high
level and get a better understanding of the
current process.
Often, there is a sense of confusion about who does what and when.
The team is using different terms to describe their process; there is no
documented process; things seem to happen arbitrarily, invisibly, or by
chance.
Thisexercisehelpstoquicklydiagnoseyourgroup’slevelofunderstanding
of the steps in a process. The group will define an existing process at
a high level and uncover areas of confusion or misunderstanding. In
most cases, this can flow naturally into a discussion of what to do about
those unclear areas. This will not generally result in a new or better
process, but rather a better understanding of the current one.
Instructions
Introduce the exercise by framing the objective: “This is a group activity, where
we will create a picture of how we create [x].” X in this case is the output of the
process; it may be a document, a product, an agreement, or the like. Write or
draw the output of the process on the wall.
Establish a common starting point of the process with the group. This could sound
like “the beginning of the day” or “the start of a quarter” or “after we finished the
last one.” This is the trigger or triggers that kick off the process. If you believe the
group will have a hard time with this simple step, decide it for them in advance
and present it as a best guess. Write this step on a sticky note, put it on the wall,
and then proceed with the exercise.
1. Instruct participants to think about the process from beginning to end.
Then give them the task: write down the steps in the process. They can
use as many notes as they like, but each step must be a separate note.
2. After the participants have brainstormed their version of the steps, ask
them to come up to the wall and post them to compare. The group
should place their steps above and below one another’s so that they can
compare their versions of steps 1, 2, and so on.
3. Prompt the group to find points of agreement and confusion. Look for
terminology problems, where participants may be using different words
to describe the same step. Points of confusion may surface where
“something magical happens” or no one is really clear on a step.
4. The group will draw their own conclusions about what the different
versions of the process mean and what they can or should do about it.
For a larger group, you may want to avoid individual readouts and instead
have people post up simultaneously. If you sense in advance that the
group will get caught up in the details, ask them to produce a limited
number of steps — try 10.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/post-the-path/
Participants: 2-10 Time: 30 min-1 hour
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Roo Reynolds on Flickr

ValuePropositionCanvas
Map, think though, and discuss your value propositions
and how they match your customers’ needs.
This thinking and design tool helps you design Value Propositions that
match your customers’ needs and aids them in solving their problems.
The Value Proposition Canvas guides you towards the problem-solution
fit in a more structured, thoughtful way. It captures core issues around
customer problems and potential solutions.
The Value Proposition Canvas is based on two blocks from the Business
Model Canvas: the Value Proposition and the Customer Segment. This
exercise sketches out both in more detail with a simple but powerful
structure, which will allow for better strategic conversations and prepare
you for testing both building blocks.
Instructions
1. Before starting the canvas, sketch a profile of your target customers. First,
determine what they are trying to accomplish. This could be tasks they are
trying to perform and complete, problems they are trying to solve, or needs
they are trying to satisfy. Next, describe any negative emotions, costs, and
risks that they might experience before, during, and after getting the job
done. Then describe the benefits they expect, desire, or would be surprised
by, which include utility, social gains, positive emotions, and cost savings.
2. Once the team has completed the customer profile, begin creating the
Value Proposition Canvas. Divide a flip-chart sheet of paper into three
sections: Products & Services, Gain Creators, and Pain Relievers.
See an example of the template:
http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/downloads/value_proposition_canvas.pdf
3. In the Products & Services section: List all the products and services your
value proposition is built around. Which products and services do you offer
that help your customer get either a functional, social, or emotional job
done, or help him/her satisfy basic needs? Rank all products and services
according to their importance to your customer—are they crucial or trivial?
4. In the Gain Creators section: Describe how your products and services
create customer gains. How do they create benefits your customer
expects, desires or would be surprised by, including functional utility, social
gains, positive emotions, and cost savings?
5. In the Pain Relievers section: Describe how your products and services
alleviate customer pains. How do they eliminate or reduce negative
emotions, undesired costs and situations, and risks your customer
experiences or could experience before, during, and after getting the job
done?
6. You can use the Value Proposition Canvas like the Business Model Canvas:
plot it as a poster, post it up on the wall, then use sticky notes to start
sketching.
Strategyzer.com, Strategyzer AG
http://businessmodelalchemist.com/blog/2012/08/achieve-product-market-fit-with-our-brand-new-value-
proposition-designer.html
http://businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas/vpc?_ga=1.216540690.564012849.1430337420
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Epicantus on Flickr

CONFIRMTHEPROBLEM
TreeTesting
Find gaps between your product’s current
navigation and what your users actually expect.
Tree testing is used to determine how users find items within an existing
navigational structure, when given a particular task or series of tasks
to complete.
The test usually involves grouping items based on hierarchy and naming
alone — often with each item on index cards or paper rather than via a
digital medium — so that findability can be judged without interference
from other factors like visual design. Teams can leverage the results
from this technique to decide whether parts or the entirety of a chosen
navigation can successfully accommodate the kinds of user activities
the product is expected to support.
CONFIRMTHEPROBLEM
Who is involved?
Tree testing requires a recruiter to find existing users who exhibit the type
of behaviors that would involve navigating through the current product;
a moderator to give instructions, ask the participant to do a sample task,
and organize the index cards with navigational options on them as the
participant answers; and a team to analyze and validate (or invalidate)
the findability of important options within the current structure.
How is it done?
1. Recruit current users who are most likely familiar with the type of
sample tasks you’ll be asking them to complete during the tree testing.
2. Create a series of index cards with the names of current or proposed
navigational options on them, to show to the participant during the
test.
3. During the session, have the moderator present a sample task (such
as, “Find an article involving Syria”) and lay out the cards with the
first-level navigation options on them (e.g. “World”, “U.S.”, and “New
York”). As the participant moves through navigational levels, more
cards are added onto the table until the participant is confident they
are at the page where they can complete the task. Keep in mind:
participants are allowed to backtrack through the levels.
4. After each participant’s navigational tree has been recorded, sit down
as a team to analyze where frustrations and navigational pain points
are most evident and plan your next steps.
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Seongbin Im on Flickr

CONFIRMTHEPROBLEM
StakeholderInterviews
Reach out to stakeholders to uncover the varied business
needs and motivations involving your product.
Interviewing project stakeholders is an invaluable resource for uncovering
the goals, needs, and frustrations of those external to the core team but who
have a vested interest in the outcome of the product discovery process.
Perform these interviews to both understand the breadth of requirements
andactivitiesbehindtheeffortstoimproveyour product,as wellas assess the
current organizational knowledge of user needs and problems. This overview
should result in materials describing, at a high-level, the user, business, and
organizational problems currently experienced by stakeholders, as well as
their plans or hopes for improving the team’s product.
CONFIRMTHEPROBLEM
Who is involved?
Stakeholder interviews require a product team capable of identifying and
recruiting stakeholders internally, moderating and note-taking during the
interview, and combing through the responses to understand the wider
range of business needs and goals involving your product.
How is it done?
1. Create an interview guide listing the general or department-specific
questions you’d like to pose to individual stakeholders.
2. Recruit based on willingness to chat with the product team, and be
sure to schedule as much in advance as possible, given that your
stakeholders are most likely very busy.
3. During the one-on-one interviews, spend some time at the beginning
briefly introducing the purpose of the interviews and what sorts of
questions you’ll be asking; they should last 30 minutes to an hour.
The team moderator should feel free to deviate from the guide
whenever an interesting topic has been broached.
4. Sit down as a team and uncover key insights, powerful quotes, and
stakeholder needs from your notes; these will inform how your team
understands the product within the larger organizational goals.
Objective
CC Image courtesy of mobology on Flickr

CONFIRMTHEPROBLEM
Go/No-GoDecision
Discuss and decide whether the problem is a valid one to
pursue further.
Now the team has reached a critical point—deciding whether to proceed
with pursuing the problem. Everything the team has done until now will
feed into this decision. In the Go/No-Go Decision, the team evaluates all
the available evidence to determine the fate of the problem, in its current
incarnation.
CONFIRMTHEPROBLEM
Instructions
After having done the necessary work to understand if your solution is
usable and valuable, the team is faced with one of two outcomes:
1. You’ve validated the solution(s) with your customers. If this is the
case, it is ready to be added to the product backlog.
2. You’ve concluded that one or more of the solutions you’ve tested
does not resonate with users. If this is the case, the team must
decide to either pivot and test new solution ideas, or move on to a
new opportunity altogether.
Objective

IDENTIFYPOSSIBLESOLUTIONS
MindMapping
Take your ideas, mix them with notes you’ve taken, and loosely
organize them on paper.
Now you’re going to add all the other ideas that are in your head, mix
them with the notes you just took, and loosely organize them on paper.
The mind map is going to be your “cheat sheet” you can use when
you’re sketching UI ideas.
Instructions
1. This will entail quiet individual brainstorming. Each person writes
down everything in their head with no specific formatting.
2. You can write words and connect them, or not. You can draw
pictures, or not. You basically can’t do it wrong.
3. The important thing is that everyone is getting every solution, old
and new, out of their head and onto paper at very low fidelity.
Google Ventures: http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-divergeday2
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Balanced Team on Flickr

Post-Up
Generate ideas individually about a given topic on sticky notes,
then quickly present them to the group.
This exercise is used to generate many ideas from the group with silent
sticky note writing. It is intended to be an opening activity, and a first
step to help guide next steps for your group.
From here you can move on to another gamestorming exercise. For
example, the group may want to create an Affinity Map or further
organize and prioritize everyone’s thoughts using Forced Ranking.
Instructions
There are many ways to work with ideas using sticky notes. Generating
ideas is the most basic play, and it starts with a question that your group
will be brainstorming answers to. For example: “What are possible uses
for Product X?” Write the question or topic on a whiteboard. Ask the
group to brainstorm answers individually, silently writing their ideas on
separate sticky notes. The silence lets people think without interruption,
and putting items on separate notes ensures that they can later be
shuffled and sorted as distinct thoughts. After a set amount of time, ask
the members of the group to stick their notes to the whiteboard and
quickly present them. If anyone’s items inspire others to write more,
they can stick those up on the wall too, after everyone has presented.
Harry Brignall at the 90% of Everything blog makes a great suggestion:
“When doing a post-up activity with sticky notes in a workshop, you
may want to use the FOG method: mark each note with F (fact), O
(opinion) or G (guess). It’s such a simple thing to do, but it adds a
great deal of clarity to the decision-making process.”
http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/post-up/
Participants: 1-50 Time: 10 minutes–1 hour
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Robert van Geenhuizen on Flickr

6-8-5Sketching
Create 6 to 8 sketches in 5 minutes to get down initial ideas,
generate many ideas, and iterate on the best ones.
One reason we end up with under-developed ideas is that we stick with
our first good idea, rather than taking time to explore other approaches.
In this exercise, participants quickly generate many ideas without
worrying about details. This can be used for any concept that you want
to brainstorm early in the ideation process, and has the best results
with a diverse group (including product, marketing, engineering,
design, etc.). It can be repeated to hone a few of the best ideas, and is
often followed by a debrief session or another gamestorming exercise
to focus on the most fruitful ideas.
Instructions
1. Prepare several sheets of paper with a 2×2 or 2×3 grid. You want to create
boxes big enough for players to sketch their ideas in, but small enough to
constrain them to one idea per box. Prepare enough paper for everyone to
have about 10 boxes per round.
2. As the group is gathering, distribute sheets of paper to each player. Or
instruct the group on how to make their own 2×2 grid by drawing lines in
their notebook.
3. Introduce the game and remind players of the objective for the meeting.
Tell players that the goal with 6-8-5 is to generate between 6-8 ideas
(related to the meeting objective) in 5 minutes.
4. Next, set a timer for 5 minutes.
5. Tell the players to sit silently and sketch out as many ideas as they can until
the timer ends — with the goal of reaching 6-8 ideas. The sketches can
and should be very rough — nothing polished in this stage.
6. When the time runs out, the players should share their sketches with the
rest of the group. The group can ask questions of each player, but this
is not a time for a larger brainstorming session. Make sure every player
presents his/her sketches.
7. With time permitting, repeat another few rounds of 6-8-5. Players can
further develop any ideas that were presented by the group as a whole or
can sketch new ideas that emerged since the last round. They can to work
on separate ideas, or begin working on the same idea. But the 5-minute
sketching sprint should always be done silently and independently.
6-8-5 is intended to help players generate many ideas in succession, without
worrying about the details or implementation of any particular idea. It’s designed
to keep players on task by limiting them to sketch in small boxes and work fast in
a limited amount of time. 6-8-5 can be used on any product or concept that you
want to brainstorm, and it has the best results when done with a heterogenous
group (people from product, marketing, engineering, design, etc.).
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-fresh-thinking-and-ideas/6-8-5s/
Participants: 2+ Time: 30 minutes–1 hour
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Juhan Sonin on Flickr

Brainwriting
Generate multiple ideas individually, share them with each other,
and then build on them together.
Some of the best ideas are compilations from multiple contributors.
Brainwriting is a simple way to generate ideas, share them, and
subsequently build on them within a group. Access to multiple hands,
eyes, and minds can yield the most interesting results.
This exercise is intentionally silent, which gives quieter participants the
opportunity to generate ideas without having to verbalize to everyone,
and it guarantees input from every participant in the room. Brainwriting
allows ideas to emerge before being critiqued and creates a space for
them to be co-created, with multiple owners, and therefore a greater
chance of follow-through.
Instructions
1. In a space visible to the players, write the topic around which you need to
generate ideas and draw a picture of it. An example of a topic might be
“Employee Recognition Program.”
2. Distribute index cards to each player and ask them to silently generate
ideas related to the topic and write them on the cards.
3. As they complete each idea, ask the players to pass that idea to the person
on their right.
4. Tell the players to read the card they received and think of it as an “idea
stimulation” card. Ask them to add an idea inspired by what they just read
or to enhance the idea and then pass again to their right.
5. Continue this process of “brainwriting” and passing cards to the right until
there are various ideas on each card.
Optional activity: Ask the players to write an idea on a piece of paper and
then fold it into an airplane and fly it to another participant. Continue
writing and flying the planes until each piece of paper has several ideas.
Conclude with steps 6 and 7.
6. Once finished, collect the cards and ask for help taping them to the wall
around the topic and its picture.
7. Have the group come to the wall to review the ideas and draw stars next to
the ones they find most compelling. Discuss.
Optional activity: Create an idea gallery in the room using flip-chart pads
and stands. Ask players to write as many ideas on the sheet as they can and
then wander around the room and add ideas to the other sheets. Continue
this process until each sheet has a good number of ideas.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/brainwriting/
Objective

Start,Stop,Continue
Examine the current situation, goal, or product by brainstorming
what you want to start doing, what should be stopped, and what
works well now.
This exercise examines three key aspects of your current situation:
1) What should you start doing? 2) What isn’t working that you should
discontinue? 3) What’s working well now that you should continue doing?
Participants brainstorm individually, which frames the discussion with
the larger group. This is useful for guiding “problem-solving” meetings
or for conceptualizing aspirational steps toward a vision.
Instructions
Ask the group to consider the current situation or goal and individually
brainstorm actions in these three categories:
Start: What are things that we need to START doing?
Stop: What are we currently doing that we can or should STOP?
Continue: What are we doing now that works and should CONTINUE?
Have individuals share their results.
Strategy
This exercise is broad enough to work well as an opening or closing
exercise. It’s useful in framing discussion at “problem-solving” meetings,
or as a way to brainstorm aspirational steps toward a vision.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-decision-making/start-stop-continue/
Participants: 1-10 Time: 10 minutes–1 hour
Objective
CC Image courtesy of ykanazawa1999 on Flickr

TheAnti-Problem
When the team is running out of ideas for solutions for a
problem, get unstuck by identifying ways to solve the
opposite problem.
When the team is already working on a problem, but running out of
ideas for solutions, this exercise helps your group get unstuck. By asking
everyone to identify ways to solve the problem opposite to the current
one, it becomes easier to see where a current solution might be going
astray or where an obvious solution isn’t being applied.
Make the anti-problem more extreme than it really is—this better helps to
break out of existing patterns. The intention is not to eliminate a complex
problem or come up with a viable solution in 30 minutes; it is to give your
team a new approach that can lead to a solution after the session.
Instructions
1. Before the meeting, find a situation that needs to be resolved or a
problem that needs a solution.
2. Give players access to sticky notes, markers, index cards, pipe
cleaners, modeling clay—any supplies you have around the office
that they could use to design and describe solutions.
3. Break large groups into smaller groups of three to four people
and describe what they’ll tackle together: the anti-problem, or the
current problem’s opposite. (For example, if the problem is sales
conversion, the players would brainstorm ways to get customers
to avoid buying the product.) The more extreme the problem’s
opposite, the better.
Optional activity: Bring a list of smaller problems and decrease the
amount of time allotted to solve them. Make it a race to come up
with as many solutions as the group can churn out—even if they’re
outlandish.
4. Give the players 15–20 minutes to generate and display various
ways to solve the anti-problem. Encourage fast responses and a
volume of ideas. There are no wrong solutions.
5. When the time is up, ask each group to share their solutions to the
anti-problem. They should stand and display any visual creations
they have at this time or ask the others to gather around their table
to see their solutions.
6. Discuss any insights the players have gained or any discoveries
they have made.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-fresh-thinking-and-ideas/the-anti-problem/
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Cecilia Espinoza on Flickr

Storyboarding
Take the ideas you’ve generated so far, and sketch how a user
would move through part of a user story.
After the team has done some mind-mapping and quickly sketched
ideas, make that user story diagram more concrete. The goal is to take
the ideas you’ve generated so far and sketch an actual UI showing how a
user would move through this part of the story — where they click, what
info they enter, what they think, etc. These storyboards will be shared
anonymously and critiqued by the group.
Instructions
1. Start with a blank sheet of paper, and put 3 sticky notes on it. Each
sticky note is one frame in the storyboard. It’s kind of like a comic
book that you’re going to fill in.
2. Look back at your mind map and your sketches to find the best
ideas, the ones you’d like to illustrate in more detail.
3. Draw UI in the three frames of their storyboard showing a
progression: first this, then that, then that.
4. There are three important storyboard rules:
Make it stand alone. Just like a real product, your drawing has to
make sense by itself, without you there to pitch it. In the next steps,
people will be looking at these, but you won’t have a chance to talk
about your idea until the end.
Keep it anonymous. Don’t write your name on your drawing.
You’ll want all ideas to start on a level playing field and it can be
distracting to know which one was drawn by the CEO.
Give it a name. Come up with a catchy title for your idea. That
makes it easier to discuss and compare later.
5. When you finish the storyboards, hang them on the wall.
6. Have the team silently critique or dot vote on the most interesting
concepts to move forward with.
Google Ventures, http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-divergeday2
Objective
CC Image courtesy of CannedTuna on Flickr

ElevatorPitch
Use madlibs to create a compelling elevator pitch for your
product, service, or idea.
Whether developing a service, a company-wide initiative, or just a good
idea that merits spreading, a group will benefit from collaborating on
what is—and isn’t—in the pitch. This is often the most difficult task in
developing a new idea. The better and bigger the idea, the harder the
pitch is to write.
The elevator pitch must be unique, believable and important. It should
be a short and compelling description of the problem, for whom you’re
solving it, and the key benefit that distinguishes the solution from
competitors.
Instructions
To set up, write the following questions on flipcharts, one question per page:
Who is the target customer? What is the customer need? What is the product
name? What is its market category? What is its key benefit? Who or what is
the competition? What is the product’s unique differentiator?
These are the elements of the pitch, following a formula: For (target customer)
who has (customer need), (product name) is a (market category) that (one key
benefit). Unlike (competition), the product (unique differentiator).
Then, explain the elements and their connections: The target customer
and customer need are simple. Any relatively good idea or product will have
many potential customers and address many needs. Fix the product name in
advance—this will help contain the scope of the conversation. The market
category should be an easily understood description of the type of idea or
product. It may be like “training program” or “peer-to-peer community.” The
key benefit is the single most compelling reason a target customer would buy
into the idea. The competition and unique differentiator are final punctuation
of the pitch. Who or what will the target customer compare this idea to, and
why is it unique?
To play:
First, participants brainstorm ideas on sticky notes that fit under each of the
headers, without discussion.
Next, the group may discuss areas where they have the most trouble. Dot
voting or affinity mapping can help prioritize ideas. After this, in small groups,
pairs, or as individuals, participants write out possible elevator pitches, based
on the ideas on the flipcharts.
After a set amount of time (ex: 15 minutes) the groups reconvene and present
their draft pitches. The group may choose to role play as target customers while
listening, commenting or asking questions. The group may craft distinct pitches
for different target customers.
The exercise is complete when there is a strong direction among the group on
what the pitch should and should not contain.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/elevator-pitch/
Participants: 1-5 Time: 1.5+ hours
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Wayan Vota on Flickr

TheVCPitch
Imagine you’re entrepreneurs pitching your idea to venture
capitalists—present your key selling points, how the idea can
make money, and why people will buy it.
It’s easy to generate concepts where money, time and technical capacity are
unlimited, or ideas that look good in theory, but are impractical in reality. This
exercise brings attention back to the real world.
You play the role of entrepreneurs who need to sell your idea to a group of
venture capitalists (VCs) by focusing on feasibility and viability. What are the
key selling points? How can this make money? Why will people buy it? This
exercise captures the different perspectives that different groups have about
a concept, product, service, or prototype, and also the type of language
everyone uses to define it. The questions the VCs ask usually expose weak
points or help clarify ideas, which can then be discussed by the larger group.
Instructions
1. Divide people into small groups, ideally pairs or triads. One group
should take the role the VCs, while the others are ‘entrepreneurs’.
2. A product or service is defined and agreed on by the group.
3. Individually, each group spends 10 minutes formulating their pitch
to be presented to the VCs. They can write, draw and rehearse:
the creation is really up to each group. Ideally they should be in
separate rooms or breakout spaces while creating the pitches.
4. All groups should be aware that one or two representatives will
present the pitch verbally to the VCs but the whole group will
answer their questions. It is also important to cap preparation time
(around 10 minutes is good), since over-elaborating an idea can
take away the true nature of their thoughts.
5. Towards the end of the preparation time, the VCs give groups a
time-warning: ‘You have 2 minutes prep remaining’.
6. Each group then presents their pitch – a time limit (3 minutes)
is given for each presentation and the VCs can ask up to two
questions each.
7. It’s not essential, but to add a sense of competition, the VCs can
decide which pitch is the winner at the end.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/the-pitch/
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Fresh Tilled Soil on Flickr

ParticipatoryDesign
Bring your customers into the building to collaboratively
build their perfect product with the team.
Participatory design is a collaborative way to bring stakeholders and
potential users into the design process, giving them a chance to share
their ideas with the team through solution-building activities rather than
verbal communication alone.
Usingphysicalmaterials—pen,paper,tape,etc.—andactivediscussion,
the team partners with real users, learns about their needs and wants,
and identifies possible solutions to prototype and validate in future
milestones. Participatory design results in not only rich understanding
of the target user, but also in powerful artifacts and narratives to inspire
the team in later stages.
Who is involved?
Participatory design requires a recruiter to source either target users
or stakeholders that share an interest in influencing your product; a
moderator to guide the participants through the design exercises; and
the team to decide on research goals, plan the exercises, and document
findings to identify possible directions for your solution.
How is it done?
1. Frame the goals, objectives, and questions for the design exercise.
What are you trying to achieve by letting them design their perfect
experience? What should we ask participants to design?
2. Recruit participants who are open to sharing their perspectives
through creative exercises in-house.
3. On the day of the sessions (participatory design should be one-on-
one with recruits), invite each participant into a large room with
enough space to be creative, and enough materials to fully express
their ideas for your product. Sessions may last an hour or so.
4. Afterwards, take the numerous photos, designs, and quotes from
the sessions, lay them out for the team to analyze, and use them as
sources of inspiration for the solution ideation phase.
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Robert van Geenhuizen on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
Silent/3-MinCritique
Converge on the most promising storyboards using an individual
critique followed by voting.
After creating storyboards of user stories, which show how a user would
move through part of the story, you’ll discuss and evaluate them. The
critiques will also provide an opportunity to ask questions you may have
about any of the storyboards.
Determining which storyboards (or parts of storyboards) everyone liked
best will help the team decide where to focus and which pieces will go
into the prototype.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
1. For the Silent Critique, participants are given a bunch of dot stickers. Everyone
silently looks at the storyboards and puts a sticker on every idea or part of an
idea they like. There are no limits to how many stickers you can use, and you
can vote for your own ideas. By the end, you’ve got a heat map of ideas.
2. For the Three-Minute Critiques, everybody gathers around the storyboards
one at a time. First, people talk about what they liked, then we ask the person
who drew it if we missed anything important. Usually the best ideas are the
ones people can understand without an explanation. This process works far
better than letting people explain their ideas first — which almost always uses
up a lot of time.
• You might opt to do the three-minute critiques on a projector, especially
if there are a lot of ideas to get through. Take photos of each storyboard,
upload them to a shared drive, put them in an editable file, then make
notes about parts we like with outlines and text labels as you go through.
This is easier for everyone to see, and you have a digital artifact of the
ideas. Count on 15 extra minutes to capture and upload photos.
3. Super Vote: Once you’ve looked at all the ideas, everybody gets a few “special”
stickers (which can be the same dot stickers with a pen mark on them). These
are “super votes” for the ideas you think are the best. Between the original and
super votes, it’s easy to see the strongest concepts.
The super votes can reflect the decision-making structure of your team or company.
Does your CEO make all final product decisions? If that’s the case, be honest, and
give her three super votes and everybody else one. The simple rule is to give the
deciders extra votes.
By default, this process will be a meritocracy, but that’s not always the way
companies work and consensus can lead to poor design decisions. The last thing
you want are decisions that the deciders don’t truly support. Don’t be surprised if it
feels a bit awkward to bring this up.
Google Ventures, http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-divergeday2
Objective
Participants: 1+ Time: 5-10 minutes
CC Image courtesy of Balanced Team on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
IdentifyConflicts
Comb through your storyboards and look for conflicts—where
there are two or more different approaches to solving the same
problem.
Comb through everyone’s storyboards from your storyboarding session
(refer to storyboarding exercise), and look for conflicts. A conflict is a
place where there are two or more different approaches to solving the
same problem. Conflicting approaches are super helpful because they
illuminate the choices for your product.
Each conflict is like a little gold mine. In business-as-usual design,
designers often end up picking one approach and going straight to high
resolution.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
1. Post everyone’s storyboards up on the wall, side-by-side.
2. Every time you find a conflict, write it down.
3. Put the topic and solutions on sticky notes.
4. Map out your decision points, and you may even want to explore a
few conflicting ideas in parallel instead of immediately committing
to a safe choice.
Google Ventures, http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-decideday3
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Rob Enslin on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
DesigntheBox
Make focused decisions to design the package for an idea, which
communicates information about its important features.
Teams create a physical “box” that sells an idea, whether it is a tangible
product or not. The box serves as a focusing device that wraps up
intangible information into a physical object, prompting decisions along the
way. Through this, your team must decide on important features and other
aspects of your vision that are difficult to articulate.
When presenting or “selling” the boxes to each other, a number of things
come to life, including the translation of features into benefits. This exercise
can facilitate any vision-oriented discussion. The resulting boxes may live
on after the session is over as a friendly reminder of the big picture.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
Paper and markers work, but don’t hesitate to use craft supplies like blank white
cardboard boxes from a mailing store, markers, craft paper, stickers, tape and
scissors.
Sample boxes may provide inspiration. Cereal boxes with their free prize offers, bold
imagery and nutritional information are good. Plain “store-label” boxes, gift boxes and
toy boxes give a range of voices. Teams that are heavily entrenched in business-as-
usual may benefit most from this.
Before creating a box, the team should reflect on what could be on it. Consider laying
out building blocks, such as possible names of the idea, customers, or buyers, and
possible features and functions.
This may be familiar ground, or it may be new. The key is to give teams just enough
information to feel comfortable starting.
Give the teams a set amount of time, 30 minutes or more, to create the box for their
idea. Ask them to imagine coming across the box on a retail shelf, shrink-wrapped
and ready for sale. In designing the box, teams may ask: What’s it called? Who’s it
for? What’s its tagline or slogan? What are its most compelling features? Benefits?
What imagery would make it stand out to you? There is no wrong way to make the
box.
Teams may self-organize naturally; most participants will want to create their own
box.
Finally, each team or individual has the chance to “sell” their boxes. Consider using
a timer for these presentations, and offering a prize to the most convincing team.
Look for breakthroughs as teams sell the boxes. When selling, people naturally
translate features into benefits. The phrases “so that” or “because” bridge otherwise
mechanical features into benefits.
The exercise can be open-ended or the teams can converge on a shared box. For the
latter, note the differences and similarities in how each team interpreted their box.
Build on the common ground in the similarities, and isolate differences for discussion.
Consider running a second round, incorporating the agreements into one box.
http://www.gamestorming.com/?s=design+the+box
Objective
Participants: 6–30 Time: 1+ hours
CC Image courtesy of Design by Fire Events on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
AffinityMap
Discover embedded patterns of thinking by sorting
and clustering information into relationships and
similar categories.
Brainstorming works to get a high quantity of information and ideas on
the table, but the key is to gather meaning from all the data.
This exercise can help your group discover embedded patterns (and
sometimes break old patterns) of thinking by sorting and clustering
language-based information into relationships. It can also provide a
sense of where everyone’s thinking is focused. This exercise helps define
categories and meta-categories within a cluster of ideas, and illuminates
which ideas are most common within the group.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
1. On a sheet of flip-chart paper, write a question the players will respond
to along with a visual that complements it. Conduct this game only when
you have a question for the players that you know will generate at least 20
pieces of information to sort.
2. Ask each player to take 10 minutes to generate sticky notes in response to
the question. Use index cards on a table if you have a group of four or less.
Conduct this part of the process silently.
3. Collect the ideas from the group and post them on a flat working surface
visible to everyone.
4. Based on guidance from the players, sort the ideas into columns (or
clusters) based on relationships. Involve the group in the process as much
as possible. Have the players approach the wall to post their notes—it
saves time—and allow them to do an initial, general sorting in columns
or clusters.
5. Create a sticky-note “parking lot” close to the display for ideas that don’t
appear to fall into a natural category. Redundancy in ideas is OK; don’t
discard sticky notes because they’re already represented. It’s helpful to
leave repeated ideas posted since it indicates to the group how many
people are thinking the same thing. At this stage, ask the players to try to
avoid searching for higher categories and simply to focus on grouping the
information based on the affinities.
6. Once the content is sorted, ask the group to suggest categories that
represent the columns you’ve created and write the categories they agree
on at the top of the column (or near a cluster if you chose a cluster rather
than a column display). Don’t let the players spend an inordinate amount
of time agreeing on a name for a category. If there’s disagreement over
“Facilities” versus “Infrastructure,” write them both. If the players produce
categories that are significantly different, pay attention to which category
gets the most approval from the group and write that one.
http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/affinity-map/
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Mr.TinDC on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
Impact&EffortMatrix
Map and evaluate possible actions based on: 1) effort
and cost required to implement, 2) potential impact
(long-term vs. short-term payoff).
In this exercise, possible actions are mapped based on two factors: effort
required to implement and potential impact. Categorizing ideas in this
way is a useful technique in making decisions, as it requires everyone in
the group to balance and evaluate suggested actions before committing
to them.
As you place your ideas into the matrix, the group may openly discuss
the position of elements. An idea can be bolstered by the group, moving
it up in potential impact or down in effort. The category of high impact,
low effort will often hold the set of ideas that your group most agrees
upon and is committed to.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
Given a goal, a group may have a number of ideas for how to achieve it.
To open the exercise, frame the goal in terms of a “What to do” or
“What we need” question. This may sound as simple as “What do we
need to reach our goal?” Ask the group to generate ideas individually
on sticky notes.
Then, using Post-Up, ask them to present their ideas back to the group
by placing them within a 2×2 matrix that is organized by impact and
effort: Impact: The potential payoff of the action, vs. Effort: The cost
of taking the action.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-decision-making/impact-effort-matrix-2/
Objective
Participants: 3–10 Time: 30 min–1 hour
CC Image courtesy of toffehoff on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
PlanningPoker
Planning Poker is an estimating technique to quickly
gain team-consensus as to which possible solutions
to prototype and which to toss out.
You’ve identified a number of possible solutions to a problem, but the
team can’t build all of them. Planning Poker can help the team quickly
gain consensus as to which possible solutions require too much effort,
and therefore, should be tossed out.
Planning poker is great because it:
• Fosters collaboration by engaging the entire team
• Creates a consensus estimate rather than having a single person
driving the estimate
• Exposes issues early through discussion of each possible solution
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
1. Each team member gets a set of four cards that read Small,
Medium, Large, and X-Large.
2. The Product Owner (or session facilitator) presents one possible
solution at a time to the team.
3. The Product Owner then answers any questions the team might
have about the solution.
4. Each participant privately selects a card representing his or
her estimate of the “size” (taking into account time, risk, and
complexity) of the solution.
5. When everybody is ready with an estimate, all cards are presented
simultaneously.
6. If there is consensus on a particular size then the team moves to
the next solution.
7. In the event that the estimates differ, the highest and lowest
estimators defend their estimates to the rest of the team.
8. The group briefly debates the arguments.
9. A new round of estimation is made (see steps 4 and 5 above).
10. Continue until consensus has been reached for each possible
solution.
http://agile.dzone.com/articles/introduction-planning-poker
Objective
Participants: Entire team Time: 15-30 minutes
CC Image courtesy of bartmobiel on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
ForcedRanking
Make decisions as a group to determine a prioritized
list, by ranking items relative to each other.
When prioritizing, a group may need to agree on a single,
ranked list of items.
This exercise requires the group to make difficult decisions in creating
a forced ranking of each item relative to the others. It requires
participants to make clear-cut assessments about a set of items. This
is an important step in making decisions on matters like investments,
business priorities, and features or requirements—wherever a clear,
prioritized list is needed.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
To set up the game, participants need to have two things: an unranked
list of items and the criteria for ranking them. Because forced ranking
makes the group judge items closely, the criteria should be as clear as
possible. For example, in ranking features for a product, the criteria
might be “Most important features for User X.” In the case of developing
business priorities, the criteria might be “Most potential impact over the
next year.”
If there are multiple dimensions to a ranking, it is best to rank the items
separately for each criterion, and then combine the scores to determine
the final ranking. It is difficult for participants to weigh more than one
criterion at a time, as in the confusing “Most potential impact over the
next year and least amount of effort over the next six months.”
In this case, it would be best to rank items twice: once by impact and
once by effort. Although there is no hard limit on the number of items
to be ranked, in a small-group setting the ideal length of a list is about
10 items. This allows participants to judge items relative to one another
without becoming overwhelming. By making the entire list visible on a
flip chart or whiteboard, participants will have an easier time ranking a
larger list.
To play, create a matrix of items and the criteria. Each participant ranks
the items by assigning it a number, with the most important item being
#1, the second most important item as #2, and so forth, to the least
important item. Because the ranking is “forced,” no items can receive
equal weight.
Once the items have been ranked, tally them and discuss the prioritized
list and next steps.
http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/350/
Objective
Participants: 3-10 Time: 30 min–1 hour
CC Image courtesy of James Kirkus-Lamont on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
20/20Vision
Get clarity around which projects or initiatives should
have higher priority based on their perceived benefits.
This exercise is about getting group clarity around which projects or
initiatives should be more of a priority than others. Because teams in the
organization often divide their attention among multiple projects, it can
be refreshing to refocus and realign with projects that have the biggest
impact relative to cost and effort.
You must thoughtfully evaluate and rank projects as a group, which can
be challenging when they all seem important. Defining this together helps
ensure that the prioritization process is quality. The first phase of the
game—describing and capturing the benefits—is significant because it
lays the groundwork for the difficult part of determining priorities.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
1. To prepare, write any proposed project or initiative relevant to the players
on sticky notes, one item per note. To start, it’s important that the
initiatives you’ve written on the sticky notes are in random order. Shuffle
them before the meeting starts—you can even blind-post —so that there
is no implicit prioritization on your part.
2. Introduce the game by explaining to the players that 20/20 Vision is about
forced prioritization based on perceived benefits. Verbalize the importance
of building consensus on priorities to move the organization forward.
3. In a wall space visible to the players, post an initiative and ask the players
to describe its benefits. Write their descriptions on a sticky note posted
next to that initiative. If there’s disagreement around the benefits of an
initiative, write down all of the points made. Assume there’s validity to
multiple perspectives and let the group indicate the majority perspective
through the ranking process. If the group has a shared sense of the
benefits for each initiative, don’t spend much time clarifying them; move
to prioritization and respond to questions around benefits as they come up.
4. Repeat for all relevant projects or initiatives until the benefits have been
thoroughly described, captured on stickies and posted.
5. Ask the players if any initiatives are missing. If so, request that they write
them down, post them, and discuss their benefits so that you can capture
them.
6. Move into a neighboring wall space, pull down two random initiatives and
ask the players which is more or less important to the organization’s goals.
7. Post the one that the group generally agrees is more important above the
one they generally agree is less important.
8. Move another initiative into the new space. Ask the players if it is more
or less important than the two posted and post it accordingly—higher
priorities at the top, lower priorities at the bottom.
9. Repeat this process until all initiatives have been thoroughly discussed and
prioritized.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-closing/2020-vision/
Objective
Participants: 5-10 Time: 30 min–1.5 hour
CC Image courtesy of Les Black on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
DotVoting
Agree on ideas that resonate most within the group
to narrow down and prioritize a large amount of
possibilities.
In a gamestorming session, when there are too many good ideas, too
many concepts, and too many possibilities to proceed, dot voting is one
of the simplest ways to prioritize and converge upon an agreed solution.
Use this technique to collaboratively prioritize any set of items. You could
use it to hone a list of features, agree on discussion topics, or choose
from multiple strategies and concepts.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
First, the group needs a set of things to vote on! This may be something
they have just developed, such as a wall of sticky notes, or it may be a
flip-chart list that captures the ideas in one place. Ask the group to cast
their votes by placing a dot next to the items they feel the most strongly
about. They may use stickers or markers to do this. As a rule of thumb,
giving each participant five votes to cast works well.
Participants cast their votes all at once and they may vote more than
once for a single item if they feel strongly about it. Once all the votes
are cast, tally them, and if necessary make a list of the items by their
new rank.
This prioritized list becomes the subject of discussion and decision-
making. In some cases, it may be useful to reflect on ideas that didn’t
receive votes to verify that they haven’t been left behind without cause.
http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/dot-voting/
Objective
Participants: 3+ Time: 15–30 minutes
CC Image courtesy of Alan Levine on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
Fists-to-FiveVoting
Quickly determine what each person’s opinion is
when a group is discussing a possible solution.
When a group comes to consensus on a matter, it means that everyone
in the group can support the decision; they don’t all have to think it’s the
best decision, but they all agree they can live with it.
This tool is an easy-to-use way to build consensus among diverse groups.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
To use this technique the Team Leader restates a decision the group
needs to make and asks everyone to show their level of support. Each
person responds at the same time by showing a fist or a number of
fingers that corresponds to their opinion.
Fist
I need to talk more on the proposal and require changes for it to pass.
(This is a no-vote—a way to block consensus.)
1 Finger
I still need to discuss certain issues and suggest changes that should
be made.
2 Fingers
I am more comfortable with the proposal but would like to discuss some
minor issues.
3 Fingers
I’m not in total agreement but feel comfortable to let this decision or a
proposal pass without further discussion.
4 Fingers
I think it’s a good idea/decision and will work for it.
5 Fingers
It’s a great idea and I will be one of the leaders in implementing it.
The Team Leader then looks around the room and quickly tallies the
votes. If anyone holds up fewer than three fingers, they should be given
the opportunity to briefly state their objections, including what it would
take to get them to vote with the majority. The team should address
their concerns in return.
Teams continue the Fist-to-Five process until they achieve consensus
(a minimum of three fingers or higher).
http://freechild.org/Firestarter/Fist2Five.htm
Objective
CC Image courtesy of David L. Haeni on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
New-Useful-FeasibleTest
Evaluate the reality of proposed ideas by having
everyone rate them on how New, Useful, and Feasible
they are.
As a group develops and proposes ideas in a brainstorming session,
it may be useful to do a quick “reality check.” In the NUF Test,
participants rate an idea on three criteria: to what degree is it
New, Useful, and Feasible?
The goal of this exercise is to check big ideas against the realities they
will face after the meeting is over. It is not intended to “kill” good ideas,
but to identify possible weak points so that they can be shaped and
improved before being set out into the world.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Instructions
Set up the game by quickly creating a matrix of ideas against the
criteria:
• New: Has the idea been tried before? An idea will score higher here if
it is significantly different from approaches that have come before it.
A new idea captures attention and possibility.
• Useful: Does the idea actually solve the problem? An idea that solves
the problem completely, without creating any new problems, will
score better here.
• Feasible: Can it be done? A new and useful idea still has to be weighed
against its cost to implement. Ideas that require fewer resources and
effort to be realized will score better here.
To play, the group rates each idea from 1 to 10 for each criterion and
tallies the results. A group may choose to write down scores individually
at first and then call out their results on each item and criterion to
create the tally. Scoring should be done quickly, as in a “gut” check.
A discussion after the scores have been tallied may uncover
uncertainties about an idea or previously underrated ideas. The group
may then choose to make an idea stronger, as in “How do we make this
idea more feasible with fewer resources?”
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-any-meeting/nuf-test/
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Brian Smithson on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
StakeholderInterviews
Reach out to stakeholders to uncover the varied business
needs and motivations involving your product.
Interviewing project stakeholders is an invaluable resource for uncovering
the goals, needs, and frustrations of those external to the core team but who
have a vested interest in the outcome of the product discovery process.
Perform these interviews to both understand the breadth of requirements
andactivitiesbehindtheeffortstoimproveyour product,as wellas assess the
current organizational knowledge of user needs and problems. This overview
should result in materials describing, at a high-level, the user, business, and
organizational problems currently experienced by stakeholders, as well as
their plans or hopes for improving the team’s product.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Who is involved?
Stakeholder interviews require a product team capable of identifying
and recruiting stakeholders internally, moderating and note-taking
during the interview, and combing through the responses to understand
the wider range of business needs and goals involving your product.
How is it done?
1. Create an interview guide listing the general or department-specific
questions you’d like to pose to individual stakeholders.
2. Recruit based on willingness to chat with the product team, and be
sure to schedule as much in advance as possible, given that your
stakeholders are most likely very busy.
3. During the one-on-one interviews, spend some time at the beginning
briefly introducing the purpose of the interviews and what sorts of
questions you’ll be asking; they should last 30 minutes to an hour.
The team moderator should feel free to deviate from the guide
whenever an interesting topic has been broached.
4. Sit down as a team and uncover key insights, powerful quotes, and
stakeholder needs from your notes; these will inform how your team
understands the product within the larger organizational goals.
Objective
CC Image courtesy of mobology on Flickr

NARROWTHEFIELD
prototype, asking probing questions into the how and
why of their actions.
observation of the participant demonstrating how the product or prototype
is used to achieve their goals. After the interviews, the team should be
able to combine responses and observations into key insights that will
drive understanding of user, context, and solution.
NARROWTHEFIELD
Who is involved?
interview, to relieve that burden from the moderator; and a team to
comb through, analyze, and identify learnings for understanding the
user or proposed solution at the end of the process.
How is it done?
2. Create an interview guide for the sorts of questions you would like
to pose to participants, as well as key actions or emotions to watch
for during observation.
4. Review the notes as a team after all the interviews. Pick out
insights that can identify any opportunities to solve your user’s
needs or problems, or if testing a prototype, determine whether it
was validated through user interaction in context.
Objective

CREATETESTS
DefineAssumptions
The solution to be tested contains implicit
assumptions about users that must be accounted for
before testing commences.
In this activity, the team lists the assumptions inherent in the
solution(s) that are going to be tested. After this, the team
will quantify success and failure of the solution against those
assumptions in the Operational Definition.
CREATETESTS
Instructions
The key idea and belief that we are trying to prove is our hypothesis.
Typically, it represents a solution to a problem for our users (or other
customers) that we believe will provide value. It should be clear
and specific enough to be something that we can break down into
component assumptions, to answer the question of why we think
customers will find our product or feature valuable.
The artifact from this step is simply a list of statements that must be
true about the solution or about users in order for the solution to be
effective.
If, for example, a solution involves a button on a page to drive email
newsletter signups, some assumptions might be “Readers can see the
button”, and “Readers understand what the button does”, and “Readers
want to sign up for newsletters”.
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Tanja Cappell on Flickr

CREATETESTS
OperationalDefinition
After defining assumptions about your solution or
your users, quantify how your team will prove or
disprove those assumptions.
Anything that has not been previously proven by internal or external
research is an operational definition that needs to be proven or
demonstrated. In this exercise, we break down the hypothesis into
key assumptions that we can measure and prove or disprove.
CREATETESTS
Instructions
An operational definition is a breakdown of the hypothesis into
key assumptions that we are making about our customers, their
motivations, and their predicted behaviors, that we can turn into
operational parameters. These are statements that are measurable and
falsifiable, so that we can determine whether our hypothesis is correct,
and if not, where it is not correct based on our assumptions.
The template for each assumption is as follows:
<Describe an assumption about the customer that contributes to their
impression that the product or service is valuable. Repeat for every
assumption that qualifies.>
Success:
<Describe behaviors, outcomes, or statements for the user to
agree with that confirm that this assumption is correct. Repeat as
necessary.>
Failure:
<Describe behaviors, outcomes, or statements for the user to
disagree with that contradict this assumption or prove that it is
incorrect. Repeat as necessary.>
Existing Proofs:
<List proofs from customer data, analysis, or existing internal/
external research that contribute to proving or disproving your
assumption. If research/data is very strong, you may not need to test
this assumption explicitly in user testing. Where applicable, link to
citations.>
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Steven Depolo on Flickr

CREATETESTS
Live-DataPrototypes
Create a prototype to test with live users at a
statistically significant scale
Qualitative testing helps you uncover the “why”. Quantitative testing
proves or disproves your solution’s success. Live-data prototypes
enable running of these quantitative tests.
CREATETESTS
Instructions
Live-data prototypes make use of data or APIs to insert real content
into a prototype. This kind of prototype has more overhead than simple
paper prototypes or clickable wireframes, but to test some solutions,
live data will be a necessity. Live-data prototypes are built with HTML,
CSS, and Javascript most of the time.

Live-data prototypes will need to be tracked using an analytics tool to
measure success.
To evaluate your live-data prototype, use a Product Scorecard which
lists KPIs and targets. If the solution meets the targets -- or doesn’t --
you have an answer about the efficacy of your solution.
Participants: 1+ Time: 30 min to a few days
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Dmitry Baranovskiy on Flickr

VALIDATEWITHUSERS
prototype, asking probing questions into the how
and why of their actions.
observation of the participant demonstrating how the product or prototype
is used to achieve their goals. After the interviews, the team should be
able to combine responses and observations into key insights that will
drive understanding of user, context, and solution.
VALIDATEWITHUSERS
Who is involved?
interview, to relieve that burden from the moderator; and a team to
comb through, analyze, and identify learnings for understanding the
user or proposed solution at the end of the process.
How is it done?
2. Create an interview guide for the sorts of questions you would like
to pose to participants, as well as key actions or emotions to watch
for during observation.
4. Review the notes as a team after all the interviews. Pick out insights
that can identify any opportunities to solve your user’s needs
or problems, or if testing a prototype, determine whether it was
validated through user interaction in context.
Objective

VALIDATEWITHUSERS
ConciergeTesting
Guide potential customers through a proposed product
and determine their willingness to adopt it.
Concierge testing is an interview-based method for validating solutions
with potential customers by asking them, in their native environment like
a cafe or grocery store, whether or not they would be interested in paying
for a hypothetical product or service.
By engaging with the participant in the right environment and through
directed questioning or guided show-and-tell, the team is capable of truly
gauging prospective success with someone in the right frame of mind
to similarly use the product after launch. Concierge testing produces
validation or invalidation of a solution, based on verbal or emotional
responses from participants.
VALIDATEWITHUSERS
Who is involved?
Concierge testing requires a team to select the types of environments
where they can find potential customers (coffee shops, bookstores, etc.;
or, through analytics data to find current users who match your ideal
participant), to identify how to pitch the hypothetical product to these
individuals (either like a sales pitch, or more granularly like a guided
tour through the experience), and to gather responses to determine the
success or failure of the potential product direction.
How is it done?
1. Come up with a pitch or guided experience that encapsulates how
your proposed solution will address your customer’s needs (nothing
is too “blue sky” or impractical; think big to really underscore how
users emotionally respond to your pitch).
2. Determine who your target customer is and how to approach them.
Do you find these participants in local coffee shops, or in your
existing user base? In the same vein, create a field guide for how
you’ll present the hypothetical product experience to the customer,
and to what level of detail the experience is conveyed to them.
3. Go into the field to locate these customers, or ask those in your
user base to come in-house, for one-on-one concierge testing
between your team and the participant. Have one team member be
the presenter/concierge, and at least one other be the note-taker.
4. With enough responses collected, meet as a team to discuss
verbal and emotional responses to the concierge testing, as well as
determine if the offering was met with interest, apathy, or disdain.
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Beth Punches on Flickr

VALIDATEWITHUSERS
ConceptTesting
Leverage concept sketches and interface designs to judge how
well a product direction attracts your potential users.
Concept testing can quickly identify whether a chosen solution appeals
to potential customers and their needs through concept-based
questionnaires, sketches, mockups, or simple interface screens.
While high-fidelity prototypes provide study participants with a test
product to interact with, teams may want to take a step before that type
of validation and see if customer responses to just the idea or concept
are satisfactory. Whether this research technique is implemented through
online surveys or in-person interviews, it will result in response data that
the team can explore to determine whether the concept can succeed in
the current market.
VALIDATEWITHUSERS
Who is involved?
Concept testing requires a recruiter to identify participants who are
capable of attending a session in-house and verbalizing whether the
concepts your team comes up with are lacking or meet their needs; a
moderator to present concepts to the participant; a note-taker or video
recorder to capture any interesting remarks or observations about the
session; and a team to analyze which concepts performed the best
against varied user goals and attitudes.
How is it done?
1. Determine how best to communicate the product concepts your
team created to the participants. Should they be conveyed through
verbal communication, or via sketches and low-fidelity mockups?
2. Recruit around ten or so participants who are willing to come into
the building and share their thoughts on these concepts; be sure
to pick those who are capable of verbalizing their reactions and
attitudes toward the concept.
3. During the session, present the concept to the user in a short, 5 or
10 second period, hide the material if using sketches or mockups,
and subsequently ask them to describe what they remembered
about the concept and if it held any appeal.
4. Sit down as a team, go through the various concepts presented to
the participants, and pick out the clear winners to build out and
losers to avoid.
Objective
Participants: 10+ Effort: Low Time: Days
CC Image courtesy of César Astudillo on Flickr

VALIDATEWITHUSERS
DesirabilityStudy
Put your prototype’s visual design and layout to the test
with potential users and their preferences.
Desirability studies play an important role in discovering your customer’s
potential attitudes and emotional responses toward a prototype’s visual
design direction.
Because visual presentation supports a product’s usability, teams will
want to validate that a chosen solution and its initial visual designs are
met with good first impressions and perceptions of utility and credibility.
At the end of a desirability study, the team can expect to receive a list of
responses, usually in the form of adjectives or attributes, concerning how
the participant emotionally reacted to a particular direction.
VALIDATEWITHUSERS
Who is involved?
Desirability studies require a recruiter to source participants who are
willing to come into the building and communicate their emotional or
attitudinal responses to your prototype’s visual designs; a moderator
to present the mockups to participants; a note-taker or video recorder
to capture responses so the moderator can focus on facilitating the
session; and a team to synthesize the results and identify winning (and
losing) visual directions.
How is it done?
1. To get the most from this study, create several high-fidelity, visually
differentiated mockups to show participants, capturing all the
different interface and style directions the solution could pursue.
2. Recruit participants who are capable of opening up and
communicating their emotional responses to the mockups
presented.
3. Create index cards with a variety of adjectives or attributes (both
good and bad) that could be said about your solution; or, leverage
decks that have already been created, like the 118 Product
Reaction Cards from Microsoft.
4. During the sessions, present each visual direction and have
participants select the cards that best describe their emotions or
attitudes toward its style and layout.
5. After enough responses have been collected, come together as a
team and determine which direction aligns with your product goals,
based on the adjectives and attributes selected by participants.
Objective

VALIDATEWITHUSERS
CardSorting
Let your potential users group and organize the
building blocks of your product to validate navigation
and taxonomy.
Asking potential customers how they might logically group and organize
proposed product features, concepts, or experiences can be used to
validate hierarchies, navigational structures, and information architecture.
This research method is particularly useful for teams that want to validate,
across a few different types of users, the complex or possibly numerous
relationships between the solution’s features, functionalities, and types
of content. Card sorting should ideally deliver clear taxonomies that the
team can leverage to successfully build the most useful navigation and
flows within the final product.
VALIDATEWITHUSERS
Who is involved?
Card sorting requires a recruiter to find individuals who are
representative of the target audience and are capable of thinking
aloud and communicating their decisions; a moderator to manage the
presentation and sorting of the cards while the participant speaks; and
a team to analyze the groupings and form conclusions on the most
successful way to organize the product’s taxonomies, navigation, and
workflows.
How is it done?
1. Create index cards that each represent a potential product feature,
functionality, or type of content that can be understood by the
participants. For example, if testing an e-commerce solution, your
team may put product names on the cards; or, for a news site,
you may write down article features like “Saving”, “Sharing”, or
“Commenting”.
2. Recruit participants who represent the various types of users you
may expect to use the product and who are willing to come into the
building for the exercise.
3. During the session, decide if you want the participant to do open
card sorting, in which they can write their own titles for their
groupings, or closed card sorting, in which the moderator will ask
the participant to group under predetermined categories.
4. After all sessions have been completed, analyze the results as
a team and discuss how your solution supports (or hinders) the
navigation and flows your customers expect.
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Yandle on Flickr

VALIDATEWITHUSERS
A/BTesting
Test different solutions against each other in your
product’s production environment to see which
performs the best.
Widely practiced for small, incremental improvements to a product,
multivariate testing and cohort analysis can also play a significant role in
validating whether a larger-scale prototype gains traction with a team’s
users in production environments.
While some teams may initially be uncomfortable with the idea of rapidly
developing and deploying small prototypes to production users, these
methods may be the fastest and most efficient way for validating ideas or
solutions with real, large-sample results. The findings from A/B testing
are quantitative, providing the team with confidence that winning variants
will actually deliver value and improve the current experience.
VALIDATEWITHUSERS
Who is involved?
A/B testing requires an analytics or reporting tool currently functioning
in your production environment; an analytics team to pull data from the
tool and, in some cases, sanitize the results; and a team to sit down
and discuss the results of the multivariate testing, potentially even the
reasons why a certain variant performed better than others.
How is it done?
1. Ensure that there is a way to deploy the variants of an A/B test
to your production environment; if not, discuss options with your
technology manager or CIG.
2. Fully develop and QA each variant for deployment; make sure that
the variants can coexist peacefully with the other features in your
product.
3. After deployment, discuss how long the A/B testing needs to run,
based on how accurate you’d like the results to be; generally,
greater accuracy needs a longer test-run.
4. After the established length of runtime, ask the analytics team to
determine which variant (or whether the control) improved your
team’s main KPI, and discuss the reasons behind this result.
Objective
Participants: 1000+ Effort: Medium Time: Weeks
CC Image courtesy of Daniel Oines on Flickr

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DemandValidationTests
Determine whether there is a desire among users
for your feature or product
You have a product or feature idea, but need to know if your users or
potential users are interested in it. A landing page test or fake door test
can help you determine whether there is a market for your product or
feature.
VALIDATEWITHUSERS
How is it done?
Create a landing page or “fake door” for your product or feature.
If you create a landing page for your fake product, it should contain:
• A pitch: what’s your product going to do for users?
• A call to action: sign up with an email address to get on a
waitlist, for example
The pitch could be a video of a prototype that shows what the product
would do, as if it’s been built, or as simple as a sign up for a service
you’re describing. Or, it could be a list of subscriptions with their prices
and features, each of which has a link to register and buy.
Next, bring traffic to your landing page. You can do this with Google
Adwords, Facebook ads, or promoting on social media, for example.
Make sure your call-to-action has a Thank You page. If the user provided
an email address to sign up, the Thank You page could say “Thanks,
we’ll be in touch!” or explain that you are developing a new product and
wanted to test demand.
For a “fake door” to test a feature idea on your site or app, create the
button, link, or other element you would want users to engage with,
and put it on your site where you would likely put the real thing. For
example, if you are measuring interest in a newsletter, create a link or
form users could use to sign up for that newsletter.
Objective
Participants: 1000+ Effort: Medium Time: Weeks
CC Image courtesy of Daniel Oines on Flickr

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Wizard-of-OzTests
User test a complicated product or feature without
actually building it by pulling strings behind the curtain
Give the impression of full functionality by faking certain interactions
behind the scenes in order to gauge demand or test the value of your
product or feature.
VALIDATEWITHUSERS
How is it done?
When a fully-functional prototype is too costly or time-consuming to
build, you can fake parts of the experience using hard-coded data or a
man-behind-the-curtain.
This kind of test only works on a small scale, but can be invaluable to
learn how customers or testers -- who believe they are using a real
product -- would really interact with your product if it were fully built.
For example, to test a search function, there might be a team member
behind the scenes hand-picking search results or rewriting the query
based on what the tester searches for, to determine what kind of
filtering, results, or sort order provides most value.
Objective
Participants: 4-6 Effort: Medium Time: 1-2 hours
Image courtesy of HCI Group

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ModeratedUsabilityStudy
Pose tasks and questions to your users to see how successfully
they can interact with your product or prototype.
A usability study focuses on a user’s ability to achieve a goal or complete
a task while using a product or prototype, and gives a sense of whether a
user will find the provided functionality helpful or attractive.
These studies generally fall into two categories—remote or lab—
depending on whether the study participant and moderator are performing
tasks and receiving feedback in the same location (like an in-house
facility) or separately (via web interface or phone). This method should
produce recorded notes, audio, or video that the team can later analyze for
opportunities to improve the existing experience.
VALIDATEWITHUSERS
Who is involved?
Moderated usability studies require a recruiter to find participants that are
willing to be interviewed while using the product either in-person and in the
building or through webcam; a moderator during the usability test, to issue
instructions and follow-up questions; a note-taker or video recorder to jot
down interesting remarks or observations; and a team to synthesize the
results and determine next steps.
How is it done?
1. Create a testing script for instructions that the moderator will follow
during the session, including tasks for the participant to complete or
questions to answer. Don’t be too detailed, however; moderators can
course-correct when needed during the session.
participant, either via an in-house device or through a network outside
the building.
3. Recruit participants who are either willing to come in-house and sit
with the moderator, or have the necessary equipment to receive and
record audio and visual remotely.
4. During the sessions, have the moderator run through the test script,
but also deviate when interesting remarks or observations have been
made; have the note-taker listen into the session, or record for later
usage.
5. Sit down as a team when all participants have been interviewed,
and synthesize results to see whether the product or prototype was
Objective

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UnmoderatedUsabilityStudy
Record users interacting with your product or prototype
through webcam or screen recording to see how well
they can perform tasks.
A usability study focuses on a user’s ability to achieve a goal or complete a
task while using a product or prototype, and gives a sense of whether a user
will find the provided functionality helpful or attractive.
Unmoderated studies are generally remote and unavailable to the team until
the participant has completed the series of tasks requested by the team;
because of a higher margin for error, this kind of study should be limited
in scope, focusing on a few specific features. This method should produce
recorded audio or video of the participant’s screen and voice, which the team
can later analyze for opportunities to improve the existing experience.
VALIDATEWITHUSERS
Who is involved?
Unmoderated usability studies require a third-party provider who will both
recruit suitable candidates who are in their participant pool and who are
capable of communicating without a moderator, as well as deliver and
record the session for use afterward; and a team who will take the recorded
audio or video and synthesize results to uncover new insights and decide
next steps.
How is it done?
1. Create a testing script for instructions that the participants will follow
by themselves during the session, including tasks for the participant
to complete or questions to answer. Be as detailed as possible, due to
the lack of moderator.
2. Ensurethattheproductorprototypeisfullyaccessibletotheparticipant
through a network outside the building.
3. Administer the usability tests through the third-party provider, who
will be recruiting and delivering the instructions/questions to them
remotely.
4. Sit down as a team when all participants have been recorded, and
synthesize results to see whether the product or prototype was
Objective

PIVOTONLEARNINGS
SynthesizeResults
Synthesize your user testing results to draw
conclusions about the prototype you tested.
After user testing is complete, the team will be able to determine the
success or failure of the prototype that was tested, which will help
inform what the next steps should be.
PIVOTONLEARNINGS
Instructions
1. Describe the goals of your results session and its outcome.
2. Evaluate your test results against the key metrics and operational
parameters that were defined earlier. This is a time to avoid
accidental positive or negative bias, as you need to distill the facts
and compare them to the value assumptions and hypothesis to
empirically measure whether individual assumptions are provable or
disprovable. This should result in, essentially, a “score” of how well
the feature did in usability and value for the user.
3. List the assumptions that had problems or action items associated
with them.
Once you’ve derived your synthesized results, you have an opportunity for
one of two potential next steps:
1. The team can decide collectively that this feature is “disproven”, and
move on to the next project.
2. If there are sufficient learnings that can be addressed, and the team
believes that the trade-off in time is worth the effort, the team can
propose a minimal product set of changes and restart the build-
measure-learn cycle.
Objective
Participants: Entire team Time: 1+ hours
CC Image courtesy of Grant Frederiksen on Flickr

PIVOTONLEARNINGS
TheFiveWhys
Discover the root cause of a problem by drilling down
below the surface to relate it to its context.
Problems are tackled more sustainably when they’re addressed
at the source.
This exercise helps to relate a problem to its context so your group can
see the bigger picture. The goal is to move beyond the surface of the
problem and discover the root cause. By reading more between the
lines, you will gain meaningful insights into the source of a problem
and get the greatest leverage out of solving it.
PIVOTONLEARNINGS
Instructions
1. Before the meeting, choose a problem your team needs to evaluate. Write the
problem in an area visible to all the group members. Try to draw something to
represent it.
2. Distribute sticky notes to each player and ask them to number five of them 1
through 5.
3. Ask the players to review the problem statement and ask themselves WHY it’s a
problem. Encourage them to be honest and to write the first thing that comes to
mind each time they ask “Why?”. If they jump immediately to the perceived root of
the problem, they may miss the opportunity to see the stages.
4. Have the players write their first response on sticky note 1.
5. Tell the players to ask themselves WHY the answer on sticky note 1 is true and
write their next response on sticky note 2.
6. Next, tell the players to ask WHY the answer on sticky note 2 is true and write the
response on sticky note 3.
7. Repeat this until every numbered sticky note has a response on it.
8. Below the problem statement, write the word “Why?” five times in a column; draw
lines to create columns for each player’s set of notes. Ask the players to post their
responses on the wall, starting with 1 at the top and ending with 5 at the bottom.
9. Reviewthe“Why”columnswiththegroupandnotecommonalitiesanddifferences.
10. Allow for discussion.
11. Rewrite the problem statement on a sheet of flip-chart paper. Work with the group
to build consensus on which of the five “Whys” offer the most meaningful insight
into the problem. Ask a volunteer to rewrite the “Whys”—one per sticky note—as
the group agrees on them. Put the stickies in a final column under the problem
statement. If you have time, discuss “what’s next.”
12. Note: Five Whys is a good start, but many problems require more or less
interrogation to get to the root. Ask “Why?” until you feel the group is getting
somewhere. Build longer WHY columns if necessary, and keep going until the
players get to meaningful insights.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-problem-solving/the-5-whys/
Objective
Participants: 5-10 Time: 1+ hours
CC Image courtesy of Luke and Kate Bosman on Flickr

PIVOTONLEARNINGS
DotVoting
Agree on ideas that resonate most within the group
to narrow down and prioritize a large amount of
possibilities.
In a gamestorming session, when there are too many good ideas, too
many concepts, and too many possibilities to proceed, dot voting is one
of the simplest ways to prioritize and converge upon an agreed solution.
Use this technique to collaboratively prioritize any set of items. You could
use it to hone a list of features, agree on discussion topics, or choose
from multiple strategies and concepts.
PIVOTONLEARNINGS
Instructions
First, the group needs a set of things to vote on! This may be something
they have just developed, such as a wall of sticky notes, or it may be a
flip-chart list that captures the ideas in one place. Ask the group to cast
their votes by placing a dot next to the items they feel the most strongly
about. They may use stickers or markers to do this. As a rule of thumb,
giving each participant five votes to cast works well.
Participants cast their votes all at once and they may vote more than
once for a single item if they feel strongly about it. Once all the votes
are cast, tally them, and if necessary make a list of the items by their
new rank.
This prioritized list becomes the subject of discussion and decision-
making. In some cases, it may be useful to reflect on ideas that didn’t
receive votes to verify that they haven’t been left behind without cause.
http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/dot-voting/
Objective
Participants: 3+ Time: 15–30 minutes
CC Image courtesy of Alan Levine on Flickr

PIVOTONLEARNINGS
Pain-GainMap
Capture your users’ pains and gains to understand
what motivates and influences their decisions.
Many decisions often boil down to a person’s basic choices
between benefit and harm.
This exercise helps develop an understanding of your users’
motivations and decisions. By capturing how they perceive
benefit and harm with regard to a certain context, your group
may uncover the most relevant points to bring up in presenting to
your organization or to influence users’ decisions. This key person
may be the ultimate user of a product or may be the leader of an
organization whose approval is sought.
PIVOTONLEARNINGS
Instructions
1. Start by writing the key person’s name or creating a quick sketch of
him on a wall.
2. Ask about this person’s pains first by prompting the group to step
inside his mind and think and feel as he does. Capture the answers
on one side of the person:
• What does a bad day look like for him?
• What is he afraid of?
• What keeps him awake at night?
• What is he responsible for?
3. What obstacles stand in his way? A person’s gains can be the
inversion of the pain situation—or can go beyond. Capture these on
the opposite side by asking:
• What does this person want and aspire to?
• How does he measure success?
• Given the subject at hand, how could this person benefit?
• What can we offer this person?
4. Summarize and prioritize the top pains and gains from the
exercise. You can use them when developing presentations,
value propositions, or any other instance where you are trying to
influence a decision.
http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/pain-gain-map/
Objective
CC Image courtesy of reway2007 on Flickr

PIVOTONLEARNINGS
BrownBagSharingSession
A short, informal group discussion designed to
promote learnings and shared understanding among
other teams and colleagues.
After user testing is complete, you’ll want to share your findings
with other members of the organization.
Called ‘Brown Bag’ because people often bring their lunch, these
sessions provide an opportunity for colleagues to meet and
exchange information, ideas, and learnings in a more informal
setting than the traditional product demo.
PIVOTONLEARNINGS
Instructions
The host team gives an introduction to the format and the topic. Then
the participants all break out into smaller groups to discuss certain
questions or ideas. The value here is in the back-and-forth conversation
rather than a lecture format.
The less structure the better. One or max two people talk about what
they are doing, what is working and any challenges. It is meant to be a
lunch, after all, not a presentation or a meeting, and conflating one with
the other sometimes irritates people. If you do it regularly then it can
be a standard practice that everyone has to talk/lead in rotation, over a
period. The synergies will emerge, if there are any to be found, from the
more random conversation through mouthfuls of sandwich.
http://wiki.km4dev.org/Brown_Bag_Lunches
Participants: Team & guests Time: 30 min - 1 hour
Objective
CC Image courtesy of Halans on Flickr

PIVOTONLEARNINGS
Go/No-GoDecision
Discuss and decide whether to move a solution to
production, pivot, or scrap the idea altogether.
Now the team has reached a critical point—deciding whether to
proceed with putting the solution you’ve tested into production.
Everything the team has done until now will feed into this decision.
In the Go/No-Go Decision, the team evaluates all the available
evidence to determine the fate of the solution, in its current
incarnation.
PIVOTONLEARNINGS
Instructions
After having done the necessary work to understand if your solution is
usable and valuable, the team is faced with one of two outcomes:
1. You’ve validated the solution(s) with your customers. If this is the
case, it is ready to be added to the product backlog.
2. You’ve concluded that one or more of the solutions you’ve tested
does not resonate with users. If this is the case, the team must
decide to either pivot and test new solution ideas, or move on to a
new opportunity altogether.
Objective

NYT Product Discovery Activity Guide

NYT Product Discovery Activity Guide

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