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IT Products are a gamble

Not only is there heavy competition, but there are vast unknowns and unvalidated assumptions everywhere we turn. Until we release the product to the world, we're placing bets with each decisions we make.

This talk outlines lean strategy to up the odds of product success in the eyes of not just users, but your team, and stakeholders as well.

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65% of IT products fail to meet objectives

To the business, that’s a scary number. IT products are expensive and because of that expectations are high. Usability, and desirability, are not enough. Whether or not the product is adopted by the market is only one factor that plays into success. It also needs to meet company objectives. Schedule, budget and quality all play a part.

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Only 40% of IT projects meet schedule, budget and quality goals. - IBM

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The Portland Business Journal found similarly depressing statistics:  “Most analyses conclude that between 65 and 80% of IT projects fail to meet their objectives, and also run significantly late or cost far more than planned.”

So the question becomes, "How do we increase the odds of success?"

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Stack the deck in your favor

There is absolutely no way to know for certain, success or failure, until the product is released to real users.

Start small with high value features. Focus on your biggest risks and mitigate with small experiments. Prioritize ruthlessly, make learning intentional, and adapt and iterate when you discover something new.

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Lean product design - the ace up our sleeve

We don’t need to invent new tools and techniques to practice Lean. Instead, adapt existing techniques to work in rapid, lightweight ways with small teams.

Successive cycles of small, focused products to test assumptions with customers, rather than complete, fully considered system design and evaluation by experts.

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The design of your team and it’s processes

Look beyond the design of the interface and think about the design of your team and it’s processes to continue to increase the confidence in the decisions you’re making day to day, and ultimately increase the odds of successfully meeting the objectives of your sponsors.

Below are the key concepts this talk touches on.

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Let’s start with the team

First how to set up a team for success, some key concepts to make sure everyone is on the same page.

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Ideally, the team in focused solely on the product so they build context and domain knowledge and so there are no conflicts over time. Remember hyper focus is key.‍

• De-Risk feature assumptions by doing it all within the team
• Back-end to Front end, so we’re always delivering end user value
• Low to High fidelity because the designers on the team know best where concessions can be made, and where they can’t
• Happy path, errors, bugs, and quality tests are worked with the right context

Problems are almost a guarantee, teams should be empowered to move forward fast, pivot to a new direction, or rise issues immediately for resolution. Specific roles ensure the team has the bandwidth to consider business value, user value, and technical feasibility at all times. Your users will be diverse, we need diverse opinions, background and perspectives to build for them.

The team will design the product together. It’s not the Product Designers who are tasked to make the all the design decisions, but rather they are there to facilitate the team making informed decisions together.

OTHER people involved, copywriter, Sales, marketing, Branding manager, Legal team. 

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We should be moving toward something

OKRS are as simple as what are you doing, and how do you know whether or not you did it.

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Remember those fuzzy business objectives, out-of-sync stakeholders and excessive rework? Geneca, a software development company, noted from its studies that "75% of project participants lack confidence that their projects will succeed."

Work with your stakeholders to ensure you're moving toward something together. It’s a great way to start the conversation and make sure the team and is aligned on priorities. When you create a specific objective, you give your team a greater chance of achieving the objective because they know precisely what they’re working towards. 

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Set the line with clear objectives

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Clear project objectives also support the current emphasis on total quality management: every member of the team can consider themselves responsible for quality, because the whole team can see the desired outcome from the beginning of the project. 

Put the objective and measurements up around your team as a constant reminder of the overall goal while we get down into the weeds. Every decision we make as a team should contribute to the overall objective (short term, long term) if they don’t, it may be a reason to take a look back at your objective to make sure it still makes sense based on what you’re learning through research.

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Revisit objectives often

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• ‍Define your objectives clearly, in detail, leaving no room for misinterpretation. ‍
• Measurable: State the measures and performance specifications you’ll use to determine whether you’ve met your objectives.  ‍
• Achievable or Attainable: Choose objectives that the team has a reasonable expectation of successfully completing. ‍
• Realistic: Set objectives the project team believes it can achieve. Relevant objectives align with group or company goals.‍
• Time-bound: Include the date or specific period by which you’ll achieve the objectives.

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Keep score with key results

You’ve got to keep score, if you don’t how do you know who won? Key results should be: 

• Quantified with numbers
• Achievable not impossible 50% chance
• ‍Measured early and often, to see whether or not you’re on the right track.

So THEN, you can change direction if the results are not what you expected. That way you can move your chips around before the wheel stops spinning.

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Ready to build, where do we start?

This is a common method we use to prioritize needs. High to Low business/user value vs. technical feasibility, 

Lean means trying and learning, so you can use a 2x2 to understand where to begin. Another important aspect of a 2x2 is making sure you come to consensus what is plotted where. It’s recommended that you leverage different stakeholder organizational methods to make sure everyone’s voice is heard. What falls to the bottoms doesn’t mean never, it means not right now.

Manage expectations that these are subject to change based on learnings

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Let’s talk communication

Don’t wait for an idea to be fully baked in order to share it with your team. Especially When you may have multiple designers or people working on different parts of the system. Communicate early and often to create a shared understanding.

De-Risk re-work by talking often. Don’t spend weeks working on something, and missing that vital piece of information, that can give you the context to head a different direction.

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Being a designer involves working with people, and people with many different personalities. 

• Ask your team members for feedback on your performance
• Set weekly goal for yourself 
• Ask the developers for their opinion on functionality
• Focus on mastering relationships

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Place your bets and leverage lean to up the odds

Increase IT product success with lean product design. Successive cycles of small, focused products to test assumption with customers, rather then complete, fully considered system design and evaluation by experts

We don't need to invent new tools and techniques to practice lean. Instead, adapt existing techniques to work in rapid lightweight ways with small teams.

1. Set up your team for success 
2. Focus on the objective 
3. Align on priorities 
4. Shorten the feedback loop
5. Working towards an MVP 
6. Emphasize learning over planning 
7. Release early and often
8. Measure progress
9. Iterate

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