igap 2013, assumptions & experiments workshop
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Slides from the one-day workshop presented 2/14/2013 in Dublin, IrelandTRANSCRIPT
© LUXR.CO February 2013
Assumptions, Experiments and MVPs
iGap 2012Dublin, Ireland
CORE SKILLS FOR LEAN STARTUPS
© LUXR.CO February 2013
Ask yourself:
What 3 assumptions about your customers
do you have that, if you are wrong, your
business will fail.
Write down 3.
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Stand upSay your nameWeird/Awesome
Who’s in the room?LIGHTNING FAST!
Context (startup, enterprise, consultancy)Role (biz/product, developer, design)
© LUXR.CO February 2013
The LUXr Core Curriculum helps startups deliver products that customers want, need and love to buy.
[email protected] • http://luxr.co twitter: @luxrco • www.facebook.com/LUXrInc
LUXr is the trusted coach that helps company founders through their hardest business problems.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
A class on how to produce an awesome UI
This is not...
(How do you know itʼs awesome?)
A session on making production wireframes or photoshop comps
(How do you know these arenʼt a waste of valuable time?)
A “perfect approach” or a rigid point of view on what makes “Great UX.”
(1000s of entrepreneurs have used these techniques to discover an ideal UX.)
© LUXR.CO February 2013
DisclaimerI am not an expert in your business.
Only you can be the expert in your business.
My job is:• to ask the unasked questions;• to challenge assumptions;• and give you tools to succeed.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
My perspective on Lean Startup & UX3 Workshops
AssumptionsExperiments“Smallification”
And if we have time…MVPPivot Practice!
Today...
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An approach for building companies that are creating new products and services in situations of extreme uncertainty.
The approach advocates creating small products that test the entrepreneurʼs assumptions, and using customer feedback to evolve the product, thereby reducing waste.
Lean Startup is...
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THE NEW CLASSICS
1. List your assumptions.2. Understand your customers.3. Experiment.4. Adjust direction based on evidence.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT
1. Validate the market for your idea and build a product that solves customersʼ needs.
2. Find a repeatable, cost-effective model for acquiring customers.
3. Acquire customers.
4. Deploy the right organization for scaling.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
“The courage to speak truths, pleasant or unpleasant, fosters communication and trust.
“The courage to discard failing solutions and seek new ones encourages simplicity.
“The courage to seek real, concrete answers creates feedback.”
—Kent Beck
The Influence of Agile
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This will change how you think
about your role, your work, your
team, your process.
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Plot the difference
THINK
release
MAKErelease
MAKErelease
MAKE
time
Risk
(unv
alid
ated
eff
ort)
© LUXR.CO February 2013
unva
lidat
ed e
ffor
t
time
Each wiggle is a learning cycle.
MAKE
releaseMAKE
THINK
CHECK
MAKE
THINK
© LUXR.CO February 2013
How will you learn?
Quantitative Qualitative
Generative
Evaluative
InterviewsSurveys
Metrics Usability
© LUXR.CO February 2013
A personʼs perceptions and responses that
result from the use or anticipated use of a
product, service or system.
User Experience is...
product UI UX
via Ed Lea: http://design.org/blog/difference-between-ux-and-ui-subtleties-explained-cereal
© LUXR.CO February 2013
Generative Research • Ideation • Mental models • Participatory Design • Contextual Inquiry • Concept Maps • Behavior Models • Test Results • Competitive AnalysisTHINK
Personas • Sketches • Prototypes • Wireframes • Value Prop • Landing View • Hypotheses • Comps • Deployed CodeMAKE
Evaluative Research • A/B Testing • Site Analytics • Usability Testing • Funnel Analysis • Interruptive SurveysCHECK
THINK
MAKE
CHECK
Reduce cycle time,not build time
UX cycles = Lean Startup learning loops
© LUXR.CO February 2013
Needs1. I need...2. I want...3. My goal is...
UsesMary can...
Features
Users
Sketches, wireframes, pixels
Business thinking goes here
whywhathow
PrototypesUser Stories
Themed Releases
This Week
Design > UI THINK
MAKECHECK
BUILDMEASURE
LEARN
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UX brings 10* years
of experience, methods, and
patterns of work.
*20, 30, 50 years
© LUXR.CO February 2013
Assumptions
My assumption: You donʼt want to waste your time, your career, your patience, or your friendship building something that has no chance of success.
Workshop
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AssumptionsUse a sharpie, work independently, write one idea per sticky.
Write down 10 assumptions that you & your team must validate in order to be sure the business idea is a good one.
Underline the one word or phrase that summarizes each assumption.
Post the teams assumptions on the wall, do a quiet read.
Discuss to understand. Stack any duplicates.
Divide into 2 piles: Will it kill the company if weʼre wrong?
Stack Rank the top pile.
Choose the top assumption to move forward into the next step.
Workshop
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Examples1. Many people will pay to have someone get dogfood or have
odd jobs done.2. People want to run errands like getting dogfood.3. We believe it is legal in the country of operation 4. This service is useful for disorganized people. 5. This service is useful to time-poor people. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
Things To Note Broad ideation helps us find the best thoughts.
For fast ideation have a specific prompt, work independently, use paper and pen, set a time limit, and define a number of ideas to create.
Ideation applies to many logical thought processes, not just identifying features.
Ideation must be followed by efficient decision-making.
Arbitrary decisions are necessary when you have little or no data.
For best results, do ideation with multiple people.
Multi-person ideation relieves pressure for anyone to be a “genius”.
Independent ideation, followed by group understanding, followed by fast decision-making is a uniquely efficient pattern of work.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
ExperimentsWorkshop
Work independently, use a sharpie and white paper.
At the top of the paper, state the assumption as hypothesis that can be proved or disproved.
Design an experiment to learn if this is true. Briefly describe it.
State how you will know if the hypothesis is valid or invalid. This can be quantitative evidence or qualitative.
How much time/money/effort will it take?
Tape them all to the walls.
Discuss as a group.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
Experiment FrameworkEvery experiment has three parts:
1. A hypothesis that is provable/disprovable2. The experiment itself; the thing you build 3. An indicator of result
For Example:
We believe people like [customer type] have a need for [need/action/behavior].
The smallest thing we can do to prove that need is [experiment].
We will know we have succeeded when [quantitative/measurable outcome] or [qualitative/observable outcome].
© LUXR.CO February 2013
Example Experiments
assumption experiment measurable/observable outcome
busy people need a service to help them get menial stuff done
Prevail upon friend who runs 300-person company
Set up a “shop” in reception and see if we can get jobs.
5% of employees will make a hire. 1 repeat booking
2 wks
same ad in 10 different offices, diff types of companies 2 weeks.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
SmallificationWorkshop
Take an experiment that was not your own.
On a fresh sheet of paper, redesign the experiment:
WHAT would you do to get approximately the same learning...
...IN 2 DAYS?
...IN 2 WEEKS?
...IN 2 MONTHS?
[each person on the team chooses one time scale]
Present your experiment proposal to your team.
Decide which experiment to run.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
More Things To Note
Progress not a function of the quality, size, or # of releases.
Smallification can be done by adjusting scope or fidelity.
Smaller/faster experiments are usually better. Behavioral experiments are usually better. Small, behavioral experiments are usually best.
Founders must balance size/quality and speed of learning.
The best option is often not obvious.
There is usually insufficient data to make a rational decision The decision-maker is therefore often going to be wrong. Wrong decisions are expected and usually not fatal.
Progress is measured in sequential cycles of learning.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
MVPWork independently, with a sharpie write one idea per sticky.
Write 10 stickies that represent what your customer needs.
Divide them into 2 piles — 5 that matter more, 5 that matter less.
Stack-rank the top pile and set the others aside.
On stickies, write 10 product features that support that top need.
Working at the wall, make a 2x2: Important/Not and Hard/Easy.
Place your stickies individually.
Remove the stickies below the line.
Together, stack rank the stickies on the left.
Decide where to cut off the MVP.
Workshop
© LUXR.CO February 2013
Things To Note (last one)Product roadmaps are worse than useless in a startup.
On-time, on-budget delivery isnʼt helpful if you built the wrong thing.
Build the smallest possible release to deliver on the use.
Smallifying a product release is easier when you approach the question incrementally and stepwise.
Focusing on a small, single-use product makes it easier to get right.
Weʼre not rejecting the big vision. Put your imagined, full-featured solution out on paper, set it aside. You will understand it more rationally after making the small thing.
© LUXR.CO February 2013
1. Ideate with friends.
2. Go broad.
3. Say “Tell me about this one.”
4. Ask “who has the D?”
5. Make informed but arbitrary decisions.
6. Prove it.
7. Question perfection.
7 Habits of Highly Effective Entrepreneurs