agile inception strategies : presented by khaarthigha subramanian

“A Job well begun: A job half done”

Agile Inception strategies

Khaarthigha Subramanian

Experience on Inception?

• Experience on inception?

• When do you do during Inception?

• What are the outcomes?

• What all it comprises of?

• Challenges

• Do’s ( & donts)

Outline

● Intro on Inception

● Pre-Inception phase

○ Preparation

○ Team Formation

● During-Inception phase items

○ Inception Essentials

○ Tools & techniques

○ Challenges

○ Solving techniques

○ Handle uncertainty & ambiguity

● Post-Inception phase

Intro to Inception

The Inception phase is about determining whether or not to proceed

with the project.

○ In an agile world, we attempt to start a project with a minimal

understanding of the overall project size and scope. This avoids

the heavy-duty up front design and analysis. The drawback is

that the full scope of the project may not be fully understood.

Our solution is to use this inception to define the project.

○ Artifacts created during the Inception phase should help

determine if the project should procede to Initiation, identify and

Managing Risk associated with the project, or provide supporting

details to allow the project to commence.

Why we need Inception?

○ Evaluates the feasibility of a project

○ Evaluates significant risks and issues and constraints

○ Client-context & Readiness to start the project

○ Evaluates scope, schedule, size of project, delivery approaches

Pre-Inception

• Logistics & forming Inception team• Expected outputs and outcomes• Understand the client Context -> What are they trying to achieve?• Awareness on the industry• Gather the info – market research, competitors

• Just a brief analysis on competitors• Planning the agenda and Schedule

• Availability of stakeholders required • Expectations from client stakeholders• Share the goals and align on outcomes• Incorporating the time for huddle & Consolidation • Execution strategy

Inception Preparation Essentials

The Business

If it wasn’t already covered in Sponsor Speaks (or prior to the Inception):

What does the business do?

What do they sell?

Who are their customers (high level)?

How big are they, where are they?

What is their culture like?

Typical Activities

Inception

Discover Envision Define

Where are they now?• User research• Market Landscape• Technical Discovery• Current reality• Site performance• Brand context

Where do I want to go?• Product ideation• Rapid prototyping• User testing• Brand Strategy

Development• Content Strategy

Development• Competitor Analysis

How do they get there?• Ensure common

understanding of vision• Decide on archtectural

approach• Develop a release plan

INCEPTION GOALS - EXAMPLE

● Understand the problem and business context● Determine how software can solve the problem● Share an understanding of the scope● Define a candidate architecture● Develop a credible plan● Build relationships

Understand the Client

Inception -“Levers for Success”

Pre- Inception Business&ProjectContext

ProductSolutioning

Potentialrisks&challenges

Roadmap&Plan

Multi dimensional challenges

Going fast /deep on one direction of the problem ( knowingly or unknowingly) without understanding holistic picture

Conventional / hierarchy org structure -> hinders in meeting right stakeholders Blocked – caught in

ambiguity

Blocked because of lack of information

Multiple answers for the same question

Availability becoming issues Eg: User research

Client -> expects solution for multiple problems (beyond the focus)

Vision and larger Business context not discussed -> leading to working on wrong problem

Personality conflicts. People of different mindset

Techniques could be..

Go deeper on identified objective/ problem area

Understand the Business context and holistic picture

Being Visual and pictorial in discussions and exercises

Coherence of thoughts, inputs from stakeholders

Collaboration, team work and alignment

Facilitation

Facilitation over Orchestration

• Why Facilitation is essential?• To break the silos• Help everyone co-work easily -

Share and align on the context • We can discover much more

through informal conversations (for eg: what other business cases are present, Was there any past attempts ? )

• What does Facilitation imply: It is:• Part referee• Part manager• Part teacher• Part therapist• Being & bring Energy • Being very dynamic -> to abandon your

approach if it’s not working• Different ways of execution (alternatives)• Quick thinker & adapter

• How it can be done effectively?

- Understand and Listen to other’s thought- Provoke a thought and discussion knows- When to re-channel a discussion for some other

discussion - Time sensitive - Pulling the forum when on tangential direction

Understanding the holistic picture - Vision

● Before understanding the user’s business problem, we need to identify their drivers and objectives

● Usually, it is more than one problem that the users face at a time

● The result of our understanding the user’s business problem is essential in driving the discussion forward

● The objective here is not to jump in to a solution, but to understand their problem to the core.

What direction do they see their business heading in?

What thinking have they done about how to solve their problem?

Who are their competitors? And who are their customers and what market space they want to be in?

Tools used: FuturespectiveOr Elevator picth

If its Product , (product sponsors) -> Value Prop canvas, empathy

Identify the right & immediate problem statement

What do they perceive as their problem or opportunity?

What prior info/stats do they have to support this?

Business/ProjectContext

StoryDiscovery

TechnicalSolutioning

EstimationandPlanning

User research

Site statistics

Competitive position

Market landscape

Drivers & Trade-offs

• Return on Investment (ROI)

• Capacity building

• Process Automation

• Investor wealth maximization

Business Objectives

• Meeting Business objectives

• In-time and in-scope delivery

• Process automation and optimization

• Minimal maintenance efforts

Project Goals

DriversTrade offs

Business &ProjectContext



ProductSolutioningPre- Inception

Capturing the Vision

ElevatorPitch:Identifiestargetcustomer,needandobjectivesina30secondstatement

Example Vision

Manheim has lost 10% digital market share in a fast growing digital market

Dealers trade 6 million cars today using cell phones & faxes-Manheim isn’t involved

Cox should develop a social wholesale marketplace that allows dealers to leverage their existing relationships to buy & sell cars among themselves: Think Facebook meets OVE

It would give Cox a view of all of the dealer’s inventory & an opportunity to be involved in all of the transactions

~6 startups are attempting to serve large franchise dealerships with this model

Key customer segment: major dealers, representing 3.5M+ internal vehicle trades

Shared Product Vision - Example

Product in a Box: Imagine <the project> is a product in a box on a supermarket shelf. What would appear on the box that would appeal to our customers?

Business/ProjectContext

StoryDiscovery







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Objectives and Scope

IS IS NOT (but could be)• [In scope project objectives here] • [Out of scope project objectives here]

UNRESOLVED• [Unresolved project objectives here]

Coherence , Collaboration over Procedures

- Everyone in the team should be aligned- Even if there are differences of thoughts on execution- Directions & options in-front of us - Pulse of the client stakeholders

- Collaborate with the client stakeholders on huddles and solutioning - Helps in ensuring the wider aspects to be covered- Increases the trust across the team and the client

stakeholders

Constraints Management

• Identifying the constraints for executing the inception , in solutioning• Breakdown -> List down the Constraints , • Constraints could be form of blockers, Ø dependencies, Ø uncertainty, Ø ambiguity

• Discussing the constraint with Product/Project Sponsor could help

• Calling out / putting out the dependencies, blockers on the table

• Collectively identifying the blockers and discussing it openly

• Facilitation is a key to do this

Other Facilitation Techniques

Imagine you are selling a product in a trade-fair. The product is similar to the one that we are discussing.To enable maximum sales, design a product box that would help achieve your goalThe box can contain marketing slogans, product information, disclaimers, price and product informationWHAT WOULD YOU WRITE IN THE PRODUCT BOX?

There is boat out there and the faster it moves, the better it is for you. Think of your project as a speed-boat.With the help of post-its identify what aspects will make the boat fasterWhat are the anchors that hold the boat back reducing its speed?WHAT ARE THE FUEL AND THE ANCHORS FOR THE SPEED_BOAT?

The idea is to understand which set of features are most important, similar to how an optometrist arrives at the correct set of lenses for a 20/20 visionStart by writing one feature each on index cardsPlace cards on top of each other depending on client’s feedback on what’s most important to themARRIVE AT A PRIORITIZED LIST

from Luke Hohman

Relationship with the Stakeholders

Know & remember your stakeholdersPrimary Stakeholders are those who stand to gain (or lose) the most from the outcomes

Secondary Stakeholders are those who have the most influence and stand to gain (or lose) the most from the outcomes

Key Stakeholders are those who can significantly influence the outcomes and success of the project

Ideation over Interrogation





Relative Priority

http://fabiopereira.me/blog/2009/06/29/principle-of-relative-priority/

All the decisions about item priority have to involve other items which are being traded in favor of the most important one(s). There is no absolute priority, only relative to other items.

POST INCEPTION





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Users Existing Systems

New SystemsExternal Systems

Logical Scope

Out of Scope In Scope

User(s)

Out of Scope System

In Scope System

Out of Scope System

Out of Scope System

User(s)





Assembling a Base Plan









32

Roadmap

2016 2017

Release 1.1

7 Jan 2017Dev

11 Feb 2017Release

17 Sept 2016Dev

22 October 2016Release

29 April 2017Dev

3 June 2017Release

9 Sept 2017Release

5 August 2017Deev

Release 2.0 Release 2.1 Release 3.0

7 May 2016Release

Release 1.0

28 Sept 2016workshop

1 April 2017workshop

Today

Business Needs catered to, Business Benefits

Success metrics

THANK YOUQuestions? Feedback?

PROBLEM STATEMENT (as Appendix)

Problem Statement

“AllForU” is a retail service provider where a customer can buy household items. The CEO, Sundar Pichai is planning to invest for providing convenient shopping experience to its customers & their employees to operate.

Julia

Age: 26

Occupation: Real Estate Agent

Earnings: 200000/mth

Frequent Buyer (more than 2 books a month) , buys fashion items and make-up freak

As a Real Estate marketing executive, Julia is constantly on the go juggling multiple clients at once. She likes to get dressed well for being more perfect and confident to influence customers. She meets more the corporate clients and in the field of selling office spaces. At the end of the day she wants nothing more than to go home and relax with a good book. Julia is always looking for great fantasy novels that she hasn’t read yet and when she finds a good book she devours it in no time flat. The last thing Julia wants is to go home and not have a great book waiting for her.

Julia uses a Mac laptop and a Samsung Phone while on the go. However she still prefers to read her books on dead tree format.

Rob

Age: 34

Occupation: Manager – Orders management department

He’s married and he and his wife have recently had their first child (Charlie). Rob has an hour long commute to work each day via public transit. Rob is always trying to stay one step ahead of his peers by performing his best in meeting the customer’s need and fulfill their orders as early as possible. He is very good coordinator with other counterparts and also a Star Award Winner in his organization as always there are positive feedback from customers on early fulfillment of their delivery.

Rob uses an Android Phone running the latest version of the OS, at work he use’s Windows machines Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. At home he prefers to use Linux. On the office computers he’s limited to IE and Firefox, but at home he uses Chrome.

agile inception strategies : presented by khaarthigha subramanian

Engineering