Day 39. It’s refreshing to see a commercial re-mastered. This 1971 vintage is so refreshing! https://youtu.be/C2406n8_rUw That jingle came about via the collaboration of creative people... designers of and for things that are desirable... like this nice jingle for a desirable product, Coke’s... watch this: https://youtu.be/Sj1JbpliTeI Such a commercial brings positive vibes: the music, the people, the cinematography... collectively, tells a story that makes coke a very desirable product!
Step two: Now that we have a ‘pool of meanings’ regarding the feature and the activities, we now have a collective understanding of the pool of shared meanings... that is, hopefully, enough...to allow us to synthesize these into various stories... that, collectively, will deliver the value as intended to be delivered by the feature. Story storming: the synthesis process uses the ‘story storming’ technic. Get your collaborators gather around and jot in — put in a post it note — as many stories as possible per activity or set of activities. Post it on the wall. No judgement. Then remove…
Here is a cartoon — from Dilbert — on being a single variable track minded person. We don’t want a myopic view of the subject on hand. No, that would be small thinking and fixed mindset. What we want and need is a ‘pool of understanding’ from a lot of people... lots of perspectives considered... lots of possibilities explored.., a growth mindset... for a higher or even highest quality of outcome.
A Feature could span a series of steps — a workflow — to realized its value. We call these series of steps, ‘Activities’ ... or ‘Steps to Value’. There are two steps to break apart a workflow based Feature into stories. Step one: lay out all the activities that must happen to deliver the value. What are the ‘Steps to Value’? For example: a Feature for an ATM machine could be ‘Ability to Deposit a check’. Think about the customer. The persona of the customer will go through a series of activities: Touch the ATM screen to activate the ATM…
Now that we have a set of Features that is needed to deliver the beneficial product, what we want to do next is to explore each Feature. Again as I’ve mentioned in Part I, gather together a set of people that you think could help ‘Feature Storm’ and idea. This time around, we want to ‘Story Storm’ one Feature at a time. It might turn out that you might need different set of people for each Feature to storm. Start with a question: ‘is this Feature a straightforward decomposition of Stories ... or... is there a workflow — a set…
Have you ever wondered how to break a thing apart... into its elements in order to understand it? For instance: you have a beneficial idea that would potentially deliver a benefit to a customer; now you want to explore it. What are the Features that would be needed to deliver that benefit? You start by gathering together a set of people whom you think can help ‘Feature Storm’ this benefit. Have them ponder about it and post — use sticky notes — as many Features as possible to the wall. No judgement zone. A collection of Features — representing a…
‘... I’ve looked at life from both sides now...’ — Joni Mitchell Design Thinking looks at the matter on hand from multiple perspectives and sides — break things apart to understand and then synthesize — put things together — to reveal a clear picture of the matter.
In SAFe 5.0 terms ...in Design Thinking specifically... Information flows from various collaborators in 'Diverge' state... synthesis is when 'Converge' state occurs: when synthesizers -- people -- able to put together -- creatively -- the right information at the right time... think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.
Want desirable -- fresh -- salad? Create it with friends! You want desirable product? Apply design thinking ... don't do it alone... collaborate... create it with 'friends'. This blog post is dedicate to my SSM class of Nov - 9-10!
I really like, very much, SAFe 5.0... smack in the middle of the framework is Design Thinking! A much needed element that is added to Agile Product Development. Lots of folks miss this need: the Design Thinking aspect when creating anything and everything! I have been using this Design Thinking in all of my work a long time ago... but just now added this, explicitly, in SAFe 5.0. Here is a must read: https://v5preview.scaledagileframework.com/design-thinking/ Continuously Explore the need of the customer... understand the problem to be solved...then design for the right solution that is feasible, viable, desirable and sustainable. This…
