Design Thinking, how to make better apps quickly in a post covid world by François Légaré

by François Légaré, Bell
We will review multiple tools used to create products that are aligned with customer needs. From ideation tools to root cause problem analysis, this talk will help you and your team build a backlog that is fully aligned and prioritized in a quick iterative format (+/- 5 days from problems analysis to conception).

Bio

Holder of an engineering degree in information technology and a DEC in computer science, and more recently a MBA François Légaré work in the IT field since 1998. He was a programmer analyst and system architect, team lead in J2EE, web/mobile developers and trainer and now act act as a senior solutions engineer combining AI, AR/VR and various cloud and IoT solutions to increase benefits for entreprise clients. He also teach and give conferences on various IT related topics. He is also involved in the IT community of Montreal participating and organizing various IT related events.

His main strengths are innovation, creativity, communication, excellent comprehension of strategic business issues, the ability to lead complex projects and delivery team.

https://gdgmontreal.com/2020/05/16/may-meetup-online/

Transcript

1. DESIGN THINKING François Légaré MBA, P.Eng Bell Canada
2. Before we start Link to this presentation : bit.ly/2TIuQzQ Link to collaboration templates : bit.ly/2M3PsOR Feel free to leave comments on the presentation and tools, let’s make this a community toolbox :) 2
3. “ Design Thinking is a process to help find solutions to complex problems, based on user data/observations 3 What is Design Thinking?
4. Advantage of DT - User centered design - Foster creativity - Collective knowledge - Less meetings and less delay - Flexible and agile, work best in ambiguity And well… Work all together in a war room towards a common goal… but... 4
5. COVID-19 entered the room 5
6. 6 Empathize Ideate Prototype Test • Gather data • Go on the field • Interviews • How could we? • Meet experts • Goals per personas • Pains/Gains • Story map • Ideas / solutions • Lightning demo • Dot votes • Storyboard • Low-fi mockups • Share ideas • Refine The DT Flow Define • Retros • What worked • Iterate quickly • Redo the cycle • Fail fast
7. TIME & SPACE Dedicated is the keyword! 7
8. 8 Source: Jake Knapp, Sprint, how solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days
9. The time 9
10. Room reserved 5 days The space will have walls covered with delivery artefacts they must stay there during the whole sprint workshop. The room (pre-covid) White board, lot’s of them You will need a room where all walls can be used to put content on it. Nothing should be erased or modified outside the core team. 10
11. Virtual doc space - Google Drive - Confluence - ... Make sure everyone is comfortable with the directory space. Everyone should be able to find quickly what they need. The virtual room Virtual whiteboards - Google drive friendly: - Google Docs - Google slide - Google Draw - Draw.io Other alternatives : - Miro.com - (please share in chat) 11
12. Challenges of virtual room Real time post-it interaction ▸ Train real time whiteboard tools ▸ Do some practice run on icebreaker activity ▸ Make sure animator do a round table to allow everyone to speak, can be hard with the mono-thread and lack of visual queue 12 Challenge Mitigation
13. THE TEAM Core team and extended team 13
14. 14 Core team ▸ Ideally 5-7 persons ▸ Ideally 100% dedicated ▸ Mix of experts ▸ Diversity is key ▸ “Trouble maker” welcome The Decider (final authority) Finance/PM Marketing SME /Users expert(s) Technical expert(s) Design expert Facilitator
15. Extended team ▸ At least 5 end users per category ▸ Other SMEs (legal, compliance, etc.) ▸ Other experts that could share insights 15
16. Design Thinking work best with complex / broad ideas: ▸ What if we can remove pain of doing X ▸ What if disrupt market Y ▸ What if we would make solution for Z Can be a small portion of an existing project or a net new concept! 16 Pick a project / idea / Issue
17. We need to set our main goal, this will be the beacon to help make decisions and prioritize. - Why are we doing this project ? - Where do we want to be in 6 months? - Where do we want to be in 1 year ? Discuss as a team, then write the main goals that would need to be achieved by the solution. Now start with the end 17 Goal: Bring them back alive to earth...
18. empathy[ em-puh-thee ] the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. 18
19. Empathise Goal: Understand the users and gather data 1
20. ▸ Meet the users, ideally where they work! ▸ Split the team in small groups (2-3 persons) ▸ Try find all answers found in Empathy Map Canvas ▸ Take individual notes of what you observe Get out of the building 20 (Our more specifically, from your desk)
21. ▸ Organize video conferences ▸ Ask to screenshare operations they do ▸ Goal is to help virtually see as much possible ▸ from the eye of the end user. Virtually get out 21 (Our more specifically, from your desk)
22. ▸ For public users or market analysis: ▹ User research (ie. mkc.int.bell.ca) ▹ CEFRIO (cefrio.qc.ca) ▹ Stats can (statcan.gc.ca) ▹ Google trends (trends.google.com) ▸ Prepare Lightning Demos of findings to share findings. Gather users data 22
23. Event Storming Allow team to define event, cause and effect of systems to define a pub/sub architecture. Details about event storming info 23
24. ▸ When users mention pains points try identify root cause of the issues. Avoid fixing superficial issues. Here are some tools to find root causes: ▹ 5 WHYS - BRAINSTORM ▹ 5 WHYS - INTRO ▹ ISHIKAWA Root cause 24
25. Experience map - Back to the war room create an EXPERIENCE MAP using these post-it, it will be converted at later stage to a STORY MAP to be converted as a agile backlog. - Yellow stickers : Observations - Green stickers: Theme to help regroup observations - Blue stickers : Step of a process 25
26. Prepare next step - At this point a good overview of the experience - As a team pick an area you want to refine using the DT process - Do this with dot voting on the EXPERIENCE MAP 26
27. Define You can’t go wrong with user centered design 2
28. Layout the pain As team identify biggest pain points 1. They must vote on observation they think is the biggest issue 2. Write down pain points then convert them in to gains 3. If goals are not easy to find, use the approach : HMW 4. For each goals think of potential metrics to track success: a. Efficiency: Time spent on the task b. Effectiveness: Reduction in errors c. Satisfaction: Customer happiness with the solution 5. Put these finding in the PAIN/GOALS/METRIC board 28
29. Empathy Canevas ▸ Create 3 consensus personas based on all the previous activities. ▹ Each member can produce a persona with a name and attributes ▹ Team present their personas (lightning demo or dot vote) ▹ Team pick attributes they want to see in target users ▹ From now on, you know need to design for these personas! 29
30. Ideate Paper screens FTW! 3
31. Generate multiple ideas ▸ Using paper, pens, sticky notes, cisors we will build interfaces of the solution. ▸ The goal is to create prototype that will be used to validate usage by the end users. 31
32. Ideation (step 1) 32 ▸ Everyone individually create sketch of the ideas they got inspired with the previous data observations. ▸ No bad ideas, no technical constraints, go creative!
33. Ideation (step 2) 33 ▸ Everyone present their concepts, a other approach use dot voting heatmap ▸ Second round: ▹ Based on what was shown, individually or in small group sketch new round of ideas. ▹ Wall of ideas will be produced with all interface created.
34. Ideation (step 3) ▸ Based on story map, create a storyboard covering each steps of the process. ▸ Make sure if a features was kept on storymap it is indeed in your interfaces. ▸ Think about alternative scenarios: ▹ Do happy path ▹ Unhappy path ▸ No need to be technical, we just focus on flow per personas. 34
35. Test Confirm your creation! 4
36. Test ▸ Test interface with paper prototype to validate ideas and gather feedback from users. ▸ The prototype should be including features required to cover main needs. ▸ Try be precise in the options but keep it low-fi 36
37. Test Post Covid ▸ Test interface with software prototype to validate ideas and gather feedback from users. ▸ Still keep it low-fi, ie. balsamiq ▸ Hand over mouse control to the user to navigate the mockup ▸ Try have a camera on the user face, non- verbal is precious. 37
38. Observe execution - Participants are given tasks to execute - Observe and activate interface (change page, put popup, etc.) - Do not give away hint, tips. Let the user figure out the interface, you won’t be there once it’s online! 38
39. ▸ Recap the feedback received ▸ Adjust story map based on this feedback ▸ Does the team feel confident of a other cycle would be needed? ▸ If team feel confident: ▹ Start assess the work to feed a agile backlog ▸ Else: ▹ Redo the cycle with new insight Step back or move on? 39
40. 40 Empathize Ideate Prototype Test • Gather data • Go on the field • Interviews • How could we? • 30 min experts • Update: goals & personas • Pains/Gains • Themes • Update story map • Ideas • Lightning demo • Storyboard • Mockups • Low-fi • Fail fast Rinse & repeat Define • Review • What work • Role play • Iterate quickly • Redo the cycle
41. Link to this presentation : bit.ly/2TIuQzQ Link to collaboration templates : bit.ly/2M3PsOR Nice site with many other tools : gamestorming.com Tools & Templates 41
42. To learn more 42
43. Time to share - What tools are you guys now using to collaborate online ? - What could be other efficient way to conduct user research remotely ? - What success or failure did you had with the Design Thinking within your organisation? - Other Q&A 43
44. How reach me: Thanks! 44 www. linkedin.com/in/flegare francois.legare@bell.ca