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Product Inception
This is a quick reminder about why we are here, who our customers are, and why we decided to do this project in the first place Example:
This application will allow central board staff to manage school data that is currently not, and cannot be managed by any current software. The application will make all school information accessible through web services so other applications or data sets can use this data without having to duplicate data. Our customers are varied central staff that would be responsible for managing different aspects of school data. Currently this school information is managed by varied excel spreadsheets and multiple databases.
If we had 30 seconds and two sentences to describe our project, what would we say?
Template
- For [target customer]
- who [statement of need or opportunity]
- the [product name]
- is a [product category]
- that [key benefit, compelling reason to buy].
- Unlike [primary competitive alternative] our product [statement of primary differentiation]
If we were flipping through a magazine and we saw an advertisement for our product or service, what would it say, and more importantly, why would we buy it?
- Brainstorm your products benefits. Brainstorm all the reasons why people would want to user your product, then pick the top 3
- Create a Slogan
- Design the box
=== Customer Problem Interview ===
==== Welcome ==== Example :
Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.### Collect Demographics Before we go on to the problems, I'd like to learn a little about you.We are currently working on a [brief description of product]. [overview of how the idea came about].
But before getting to far ahead of ourselves, we want to make sure other people share these problems and see whether this is a product worth building.
The interview will work like this. I'll start by describing the main problems we are tackling, and then I'll ask if any of those resonate with you.
I'd like to stress that we do not have a finished product yet, and our objective is to learn from you.
Does that sound good
- How long have you been [in a position/with the company]?
- How often do you [activity related to the problem your solving]? *Do you currently solve [the problem or related problem]? **Why? **If yes, how do you?
Tell the user about the problems you are tackling and why you are solving them.
- List 3 main problems you are trying to solve, and have the user tell you which ones cause them the most static.
- Have the user order the problems:
- Ask the users if there any related issues that have not been brought up?
*Ask how they currently address the problems today (sit back and listen) *Ask follow up questions *Judge their body language and tone to sense how they rate each problem *Must have *Nice to have *Doesn't need *Get them to walk you through their current workflow *What products do you use
Let the person know you appreciate their time and ask them if you can reach them again at another time
Document your results in a trusted system that you can easily dissect the data with
It's pretty clear what we want to do on this project. Lets be even clearer and what we are not doing.
IN Scope contains the stuff we want to focus on. Here we are saying "These are the big rocks we are going to be moving". The can be high-level features (reporting), or they can be general objectives (amazon like scalability)
OUT of Scope contains the stuff we aren't going to sweat. It might be stuff we are going to defer to the next release, or its simply beyond the scope of this project.
UNRESOLVED lists the things we still need to make decisions on. Eventually everything from unresolved should be moved to the IN or OUT sections.
Projects have levers like time, scope, budget, and quality. What's the most and least important for this project?
Rank The most important to least important
A series of Epic User stories (really large stories that align with the scope and elevator pitches). This provides the next level of product detail from the scrum team. Scrum team should be involved in addition to the product planning.
Examples
*As a teacher want to be able to create manage, and view reports so I can better understand the students I teach *As a superintendent I want to be able to get a snapshot view of a school in my family of schools so that I can keep up to date on my schools to be able to serve them *As a user I want to know what amount of delivery charge I expect to pay when I am ordering items
This applies when there will be multiple version releases
Lets draw high-level blueprints of the technical architecture to ensure we are still on the same page. Story board the main functionality of the first iteration of the product
Some of the things that happen on projects are downright scary. Talking about them and what we can do about them can make the less scary.
Is this a 3,6, or 9 month project
The Agile Samurai http://www.amazon.com/The-Agile-Samurai-Masters-Software/dp/1934356581
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