Lean Inception, a Proven Method for Successful Product Teams

Timeline:

00:00 - 00:45: Introduction

00:45 - 04:26: Flexible Planning

04:26 - 08:07: Product Thinking

You should follow a trail, not a track.

If you want flexible planning, don´t be like a train that has to follow a track. Be like a mountain hiker. You have the vision (the top of the mountain) and you go on a trail. Whereas the trail is not fully mapped (you are taking some unique paths and decisions that have not been taken before). You keep an eye on the mountain top, but you deal with the current context, the learnings from what happened so far to decide on the next steps to achieve your vision.

Let´s connect a few dots to understand how to work effectively with the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and how to combine it with other techniques such as OKR (Objectives and Key Results).

Timeline:

00:00 - 01:10: Lean Startup

01:10 - 02:21: User-Centric Design

02:21 - 06:55: And now?

User Centric Design is an iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process.

Lean Startup is an approach to building new businesses based on the belief that entrepreneurs must investigate, experiment, test and iterate as they develop products.

Howe to effectively combine these? This is the theme for this module.

Timeline:

00:00 - 04:49: Lean Startup

04:49 - 10:23: Experiments & MVP

10:23 - 23:05: MVP Examples

MVP is an abbreviation of Minimal Viable Product, a simple yet powerful concept that quickly validates if you are moving in the right direction in terms of making a product that people love.

Only three letters that have a very important meaning to successful entrepreneurs. MVP is the simplest version of a product that will be created and made available to users to validate an idea and collect essential data to validate the direction of the business.

Timeline:

00:00 - 02:22: Product Vision

02:22 - 03:43: It is - It's Not - It does - It doesn't

03:43 - 05:05: Personas

05:05 - 05:48: Journeys

05:48 - 06:56: Features Brainstorming

06:56 - 10:47: Tech, UX & Business Review

10:47 - 11:45: Journeys and Features

11:45 - 13:41: Feature Sequencer

13:41 - 17:04: MVP Canvas

17:04 - 20:16: Schedule

Let´s explore the step-by-step activities of a Lean Inception. They are:

KICK-OFF

The Lean Inception starts with a kick-off, followed by a sequence of intense activities. and ends with a workshop showcase. The team directly involved with the initiative must participate in all activities; the other interested parties must participate in the kick-off and the showcase, where the expectations and results obtained in the workshop are presented, respectively.

PRODUCT VISION

Somewhere between the idea and the launch of the MVP, the product vision helps you to walk the initial path. It defines the essence of your business value and should reflect a clear and compelling message to your customers. This activity will help you to define the product vision in a collaborative way.

THE PRODUCT IS – IS NOT – DOES – DOES NOT DO

This activity seeks classifications about the product following the four guidelines, specifically asking each positive and negative aspect about the product being or doing something.

PRODUCT GOALS

Each participant must share what they understand as a business goal, and the various points of view must be discussed to reach a consensus on what is really important. This activity helps in raising and clarifying the main objectives.

PERSONAS

To effectively identify the features of a product, it is important to keep users and their goals in mind. A persona creates a realistic representation of users, helping the team to describe features from the point of view of those who will interact with the final product.

USER’S JOURNEYS

The journey describes a user’s journey through a sequence of steps to reach a goal. Some of these steps represent different points of contact with the pro- duct, characterising the person’s interaction with it.

FEATURES BRAINSTORMING

A feature represents a user’s action or interaction with the product, for example: printing invoices, consulting detailed statements and inviting Facebook friends. The description of a feature must be as simple as possible, aiming to meet a business goal, a persona need, and / or contemplating a step in the journey.

TECHNICAL, BUSINESS AND UX REVIEW

This review aims to discuss how the team feels about technical, business and UX understanding for each feature. From this activity, new clarifications will happen and the disagreements and doubts will become more apparent.

SEQUENCER

The Feature Sequencer assists in organising and viewing the features and the incremental validation of the product. Define the MVP and its subsequent increments.

MVP CANVAS

The MVP Canvas is a visual chart that helps the team to align and define the MVP, the simplest version of the product that can be made available to the business (minimum product) and that can be effectively used and validated by the end user (viable product).

SHOWCASE

This is the time to demonstrate the MVP plan to the stakeholders. Let’s talk about the artefacts generated at the Lean Inception workshop and share the group’s understanding of the hypotheses to validate and the way forward.

Timeline:

00:00 - 00:49: Purpose

00:49 - 01:54: Segmented Personas

01:54 - 03:10: Journeys

03:10 - 04:31: Features

04:31 - 05:05: Expected Results

05:05 - 05:34: Metrics

05:34 - 06:58: Cost & Schedule

The MVP Canvas is a lean startup template for validating new or clarifying existing lean product ideas. It is a visual chart with elements describing a MVP—minimum viable product´s proposal, business hypothesis, metrics, features, personas, journeys, and schedule. It assists entrepreneurs in aligning their ideas with the underlying (minimum & viable) work to create and validate it.

The MVP canvas brings together elements of lean startup, design thinking and business directions.

Timeline:

00:00 - 11:15: Introduction

11:15 - 11:45: Create the Feature Sequencer

11:45 - 12:29: Select some features

12:29 - 12:09: Describe the tasks for each feature

12:09 - 12:22: Group tasks by size

12:22 - 13:23: Decide the time for each task size

13:23 - 15:00: Calculate average time

15:00 - 15:27: Calculate team capacity

15:27 - 15:40 Decide Sprint 0 duration

15:40 - 16:27: Clarify dates and increments

16:27 - 18:13: Previously defined Budget and Deadline

Question: I love the lean inception method. But I have a very important question: my client wants to know when the MVP, and the whole product will be done. How to estimate?

Answer: There’s always someone who wants to know about the schedule. And, typically, they want to know it for the MVP and for the overall product (a contradiction as we know the overall product will change as we start getting feedback — we work with MVP, and we’ll pivot!)...

This module covers this topic, continuing to answer such uncomfortable (I was a developer), important and common question.

Timeline:

00:00 - 00:55: Introduction

00:55 - 03:35: Kick Off

03:35 - 06:30: Product Vision

06:30 - 08:26: It is - It's Not - It does - It doesn't

08:26 - 10:28: Product Goals

10:28 - 14:08: Personas

14:08 - 15:48: Journeys

15:48 - 17:33: Features Brainstorming

17:33 - 22:06: Tech, UX & Business Review

22:06 - 24:44: Sequencer

24:44 - 27:06: MVP Canvas

27:06 - 30:01: Showcase

30:01 - 38:01: Tips

The formation and group communication approach should vary according to the moment of the workshop and the style of each activity. In some situations, everyone needs to be involved in the same conversation, but in others, this is not effective.

On this module I share some techniques and tips used during the facilitation of the Lean Inception activities.

It may seem difficult to perform a remote Lean Inception, but it is totally possible and is just as important as the face-to-face. Follow the tips on this module to prepare yourself in the best possible way!

Let´s explore each of the following facilitation techniques:

• Divide and Conquer - Large group activities can take a long time. In some situations, everyone needs to be present in the same conversation. But in others, this is not necessary: the whole can be broken down into smaller pieces.

• Everyone talks and contributes - Sometimes we want everyone on the group to speak and contribute. This is especially useful when we want lots of collaboration, when we want to foster that one person adds to a point raised by another person.

• Fishbowl Conversation - The Fishbowl formation is great for keeping a conversation focused, even with a large group of people. At any time, only a few people have a conversation (the fish in the fishbowl). The remaining people are listeners (those who watch the fishbowl conversation). Listeners can join the discussion at any time. But to do so, they must enter the fishbowl. Typically, if someone enters, someone else leaves the fishbowl.

• Individual brainstorming - The individual brainstorming addresses a pitfall of a group brainstorming: the situation when someone does not bring a point because he/she feels that everyone else on the group has already reached unanimity. By following an individual brainstorming first, and then a group brainstorming, you avoid this scenario as the individual note is written and visible to all.

• Person in the spotlight - Often during workshops, we need to focus on a person, who shares a presentation, a drawing, or an explanation – usually with some visual artefact – that everyone should follow.

• Pomodoro - Long sessions can be very tiring. A good option for reducing mental fatigue is to take short breaks. This is even more useful if everyone understands the rule for these intervals. Like the pomodoro sauce that my great-uncle taught me: 25 minutes of activity, followed by 5 minutes of rest. Repeat this as many times as necessary, until the sauce is ready. In that case, the expected result for the long session.

• Tell and Cluster - Tell and cluster is an easy and effective way to place individual notes in affinity groups. Instead of asking everyone to write their notes and place them on a common canvas, and after that try to understand and group them, follow the Tell and Cluster step.

• Voting - Voting is a great activity for time management and prioritisation. It is typically used either (1) for focusing the conversation on fewer items with highest interest by the group or (2) for verifying the participants choice for a few given options.

• You do it, I do it too, then we compare it - Sometimes we want to compare the different solutions to the same problem. In some situations and activities, we don’t want to break the problem down into smaller pieces, such as the ‘divide and conquer’ technique. But, we want to compare different solutions or options for the same problem, same context.

Timeline:

00:00 - 00:54: Introduction

00:54 - 03:51: Describe all Features

03:51 - 05:04: Tech, UX & Business Review

05:04 - 06:04: Create new Sequencer

06:04 - 06:54: Create MVP canvas

Many times you will have to realign the team strategy against the MVP. Typically this happens a few months after Lean Inception.

In this module, I share how you will handle OKR, MVP, user stories to realign  in terms of building the right product.

You have a good plan for the MVP and its features. “Just do it”. It is a nice slogan, but it is not that easy. A good understanding of how to plan and how to track deliveries based on flow metrics helps (a lot) in this “just do it”. Let´s take a look on combining Scrum, Kanban and MVP to reach great success.