User Centered Agile Product Development in an Enterprise & a Startup

Presented at Agile Singapore 2014
http://agilesg2014.sched.org/event/fc83ddab31b35de5041dedf4ebc72492

Product Development today has various challenges where startups and enterprises alike have to move quicker and plan resources carefully for consumers (users) to be able to gain market traction and stay relevant with competitors constantly evolving.

Very often, product releases are managed by product managers gathering requirements on behalf of the customer within an organisation. He begins with a high-level product requirement and speaks with various stakeholders like sales, marketing, operations, finance to map business constraints and heads over to engineering to start building. This skips over valuable insights gained by engaging users, design teams and answering the hard questions of “nice to haves” vs “must haves”.

I’ll like to share an approach that was used in two environments with success to bring products to market with a focus on users while considering business conditions and constraints.

As a product owner in an enterprise setting tasked with crafting a mobile strategy and product roadmap or a product owner in a startup tasked with overhauling a legacy system for a more efficient business platform, I’ll compare the two distinct environments and offer insights into how a team can begin to understand and shape a company’s direction towards user-centered design.

It involves thinking with users in mind, building with agile techniques and measuring to help iterate towards meaningful product releases. Often, this results in changes to an organisation that also requires coaching and charting a path for the people who are affected.

The topic would be of interest to designers, developers, team leads, product managers, business executives or startup founders who recognises change is a huge part of business and that products that are able to create the most value for end-users are those that will gain customer loyalty in the long term.

Transcript

1. User Centered Agile Product Development in an Enterprise & a Startup Presented on 12th Nov 2014 Agile Singapore 2014 Michael Ong @michaelon9
2. @michaelon9 • 1999 - Freelance Web Design / Development leading to web hosting for SMEs • 2002 - Research & Development - 
 A Robust Rule-based Event 
 Management System for Call Data Records 
 - Société Générale • 2003 - Network Engineer 
 - NEC Solutions • 2004 - Full-Stack development 
 - Palm & Windows Mobile 
 - K.C. Dat, Nippon Express, Air Asia , Singapore Zoo, Jurong Birdpark, Changi Airport Terminal 1 & 2, M1, Mapletree ... • 2005-2007 - Business Process Consulting 
 - VISA International
 - Robert Bosch SEA • 2008 - Took a break in EVE Online
 - Internet Spaceships is serious business • 2009 - Portal Development 
 - ST701, SPH, Online Classifieds • 2010 - Scrum Master 
 - iProperty Singapore • 2012 - Mobile & UX Lead 
 - iProperty Group 
 (Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong & Indonesia) • 2013 - Senior Product Manager
 2014 - Chief Operating Officer 
 - bellabox Australia & Singapore
3. who is in your team? designers developers qa marketing sales operations customers service finance
4. Credit : https://medium.com/@tyahma/how-to-hire-product-people-aab926e077c8
6. think - make - check
7. understand your environment
8. who are your customers?
9. understand customers
11. user personas to be tested
12. who are your stakeholders?
13. designers developers qa marketing sales operations customers service finance understanding stakeholders
14. understanding 
 Organisational key concerns - Communication? - IT responsiveness? - bad Customer Service?
15. how are you delivering projects?
16. workshops to understand internal concerns / stakeholders / customers • Introduction to User Experience design • identify stakeholders concerns • iProperty • 4 workshops across group (120+ people involved in product, design, development, marketing, sales) • bellabox • 2 workshops across teams (30+ people involved in product, design, development, customer service, operations)
17. workshops to understand internal concerns / stakeholders / customers • Customer Experience Journey & Design Thinking • identify key customer journey points • Senior Level Strategy Workshop • Identify key business concerns and drive towards roadmap aligning stakeholders / customer needs
18. activity (10 min) individually list down 5 key concerns you have in your area of work / business as a team group them into similar & different items present
19. sharing time! similarities differences
20. setting up a Product Roadmap • Understand your environment • Talk to your stakeholders, your customers, your internal users • Understand pain points • Is there a way new or existing services can improve current processes? • Look at your data (analytics) - what is being used in your organisation / users • Communicating the roadmap
21. think - make - check
22. communicate your ideas
23. story #1 iProperty Group (Real Estate Portal) 10 years old (there for 3.5) 100+ to 300+ staff 4 main countries (MY, SG, ID, HK) connects real estate agents / agencies / developers to a few million property buyers & sellers
24. 4 workshops 6 months 4 countries 120+ team members focused on “user experience” as a topic to identify where,how and who we would start with “in-house” approach with mobile team with its own budget acting like a vendor co-located within the company
25. setting up the roadmap & focus on delivery
26. Case Study Developing property search apps (Blackberry, Android & iPhone) for Indonesia
27. the process • mobile roadmap • design strategy • personas & scenarios • information architecture • task flows • prototyping & testing • development • marketing launch & measuring
28. design strategy
29. product requirements & analysis Product Survey in Dec 2012 51 Respondents on Mobile Site v1 53% of respondents used the mobile site every day Reasons for not using Mobile • Search results often not found and takes longer time to load • Less information in listing detail on mobile site • Photos are not presented well on mobile site Top 5 Features on Mobile users wanted to see • User Login to access favorites (shortlists) and property search across mobile and web • Mortgage Calculator • Compare Properties by budget and timeline • Shortlist Properties • Instant updates to homes and searches saved
30. user scenarios Usability Test Scenario - 1 You are planning to buy a property in Indonesia. Your work location is in Jakarta and you intend to buy a House in Jakarta Pusat area that would be convenient for you to commute to office and back home. Your budget ranges from 500,000,000 - 1,000,000,000 IDR . You want to check out on the right property that meets your needs and then contact the Agent for further process Usability Test Scenario - 2 You have browsed through few properties when you were in a restaurant for Lunch and even shortlisted a few. You close the site and then reopen rumah123 in the night after you get back home in the evening. You wanted to continue your property search.
31. information architecture
32. task flow analysis
33. user interface flow
34. test early & often
35. prototyping for iPhone
37. prototyping for Blackberry
38. beta testing
39. testing for Blackberry
40. summary of pain & pleasure points - old design
41. summary of pain & pleasure points - new design
42. usability evaluation - new design
43. usability evaluation - new design
44. marketing
45. marketing
46. key learnings • Train the trainer • I was trained at Republic Polytechnic during first workshop and with their assistance proceeded to carry out the rest of workshops to 120+ people • Identify your successors and provide mentorship / training asap! • Team leads took over Scrum teams after 1st year when I move to Product Owner position in new team • New team Lead took over team when I moved on • Individuals in our teams have mostly moved to team lead positions at 4 years after we introduced Agile/Scrum techniques
47. key learnings • Communicate early and often • Work with Marketing early to identify launch plans / bottlenecks • Work with Customer Service / Sales early to train on product • You can be Agile in a Enterprise, act like a Startup • Understand your budget, control it • Deliver results fast and measure • After Mobile team rolled out apps for iPad, Windows, iPhone, Android across 3 countries in 9 month period, Mobile API is now used by Desktop sites • Keep your team small (we had 5) • Product Owner, UX/UI Designer, Back-end Dev, 2 Mobile Devs • 6 apps in 9 months across 3 countries we operated in
48. activity (10 min) individually list down 5 immediate items you would like to test on your project as a team group them into similar & different items present
49. sharing time! similarities differences
50. story #2 bellabox (Beauty Discovery Service) 3 years old (there last 1+) 20 to 35 staff 2 countries connects 700+ brands to a 100k+ audience 45k paying customers
51. 2 workshops 15 days 2 countries 20+ team members focused on “user experience” as a topic to identify where,how and who we would start with hybrid approach with design, development PO co-located at their office 80-90% of time
52. Case Study Re-design of 2 year old business processes and architecture as we grew from 8k+ to 45k customers within a year our question : how do we support even more customers and be lean?
53. the process • design strategy • product requirements and analysis • product roadmap • information architecture • task flows • prototyping & testing • development • marketing launch & measuring
54. design strategy
55. product requirements & analysis • Product Design • Epic Planning and Prioritisation • Understanding user research done by bellabox team • Competitor Analysis (Functional and Visual) • Discuss Brand Strategy • Technical • Initial System Analysis on v1 • Migration Planning (Data and Settings) • Setup Test Environments for Drupal • Operations • Prototype new box allocation and payment check flow for AU Women
56. setting up the roadmap & focus on delivery S P R I N T ( 2 W E E K S ) 1 1 1 T H N O V 2 0 1 3 2 2 5 T H N O V 2 0 1 3 3 9 T H D E C 2 0 1 3 4 2 3 R D D E C 2 0 1 3 
 
 X M A S / 
 N E W Y E A R 5 6 T H J A N 2 0 1 4 6 2 0 T H J A N 2 0 1 4 D R A F T 7 3 R D F E B 2 0 1 4 D R A F T 8 1 7 T H F E B 2 0 1 4 D R A F T 9 3 R D M A R 2 0 1 4 
 
 B E TA O P T I N 1 0 1 7 T H M A R 2 0 1 4 D R A F T 1 1 3 1 S T M A R 2 0 1 4 
 
 P R O D U C T D E S I G N 
 M I K E , C H A R M A I N E , S H E L D O N 
 Z AV I E R M I C H A E L R E S E A R C H A N A LY S I S 
 
 E P I C P L A N N I N G R E S E A R C H 
 A N A LY S I S 
 
 S T O RY P R I O R I T I S AT I O N I N F O R M AT I O N A R C H I T E C T U R E 
 TA S K F L O W S TA S K F L O W S P R O T O T Y P E S TA S K F L O W S 
 
 W I R E F R A M E S 
 
 V I S U A L D E S I G N W I R E F R A M E S 
 
 V I S U A L D E S I G N W I R E F R A M E S 
 
 V I S U A L D E S I G N F R O N T- E N D W I R E F R A M E S 
 
 V I S U A L D E S I G N 
 
 F R O N T- E N D T E S T I N G 
 
 F R O N T- E N D Q A V 2 . 1 D E S I G N 
 V 2 . 1 D E S I G N T E C H A LV I N , A L E X 
 RYA N , A L I F 
 M I C H A E L I N I T I A L S Y S T E M A N A LY S I S A R C H I T E C T U R E M I G R AT I O N PAY M E N T 1 . 5 O R D E R 1 . 5 M I G R AT I O N PAY M E N T 1 . 5 O R D E R 1 . 5 M I G R AT I O N PAY M E N T 1 . 5 O R D E R 1 . 5 
 
 F E E D B A C K 1 . 5 
 M O B I L E M A I L S 1 . 5 M I G R AT I O N P L A N N I N G 
 
 I N V E N T O RY S U B S C R I P T I O N S T O R E B R A N D M A N A G E M E N T 
 
 O R D E R S 
 A L L O C AT I O N 
 
 M U LT I - C O U N T RY PAY M E N T 2 . 0 
 M I G R AT I O N S H I P P I N G 
 P R O F I L E S 
 
 P R O M O T I O N S F E E D B A C K 2 . 0 
 C S 2 . 0 
 
 A R T I C L E S 
 
 R E WA R D S N O T I F I C AT I O N S 
 
 A N A LY S I S R E P O R T I N G 
 
 T E S T I N G , I T E R AT I N G T E S T I N G , I T E R AT I N G 
 
 
 PA R C E L T R A C K I N G 
 
 D A S H B O A R D S T E S T I N G , I T E R AT I N G O P E R AT I O N S 
 E M I LY, S A R A H , J A S M I N E , AT I Q A H , K AY L A A L E X A N D R E , M A R I O N , E M I LY V. A L E X , M I C H A E L A L L O C AT I O N 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A W O M E N 
 
 PAY M E N T 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A 
 W O M E N A L L O C AT I O N 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A W O M E N 
 
 PAY M E N T 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A 
 W O M E N A L L O C AT I O N 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A W O M E N 
 
 PAY M E N T 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A 
 W O M E N PAY M E N T 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A 
 W O M E N 
 
 F E E D B A C K 1 . 5 
 D E C B O X S I N G A P O R E A L L O C AT I O N 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A W O M E N 
 
 PAY M E N T 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A 
 W O M E N 
 
 C U S T O M E R S E R V I C E 1 . 5 - I N T E R C O M . I O S I N G A P O R E 
 
 A L L O C AT I O N 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A W O M E N 
 
 PAY M E N T 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A 
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 F E E D B A C K 1 . 5 
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 A U S T R A L I A A N A LY T I C S 1 . 5 A L L O C AT I O N 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A W O M E N PAY M E N T 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A 
 W O M E N A N A LY T I C S 1 . 5 A L L O C AT I O N 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A W O M E N PAY M E N T 1 . 5 
 A U S T R A L I A 
 W O M E N 
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 F E B B O X S I N G A P O R E 
 A U S T R A L I A 
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 I N T E R C O M . I O 
 A U S T R A L I A A L L O C AT I O N 2 . 0 
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 A U S T R A L I A 
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 A L L A N A LY T I C S 2 . 0 A L L O C AT I O N 2 . 0 
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 PAY M E N T 2 . 0 
 A U S T R A L I A 
 S I N G A P O R E 
 A L L A N A LY T I C S 2 . 0 M A R K E T I N G 
 E M I LY, S A R A H , S T E P H A N I E , B I Y I N G , L A U R E N , B E C K S A L B E R T G O T O M A R K E T P L A N N I N G 
 
 M I G R AT E A C Q U I S I T I O N T R A C K I N G - G O O G L E TA G M A N A G E R 
 
 M I G R AT E A C Q U I S I T I O N T R A C K I N G - G O O G L E TA G M A N A G E R A L P H A S I T E S N E A K P E A K B E TA O P T I N 
 - V O L U N T E E R - I N V I T E S L I V E I N V I T E S
57. user scenarios Scenario 1 (Example) Description in the form of a job story from the perspective of the user: When you ___, you want to ___, so you can ___.
 When you have a Bellabox subscription, you want to check your dashboard, so you can keep up with the status of your boxes, pending orders, and anything that needs my attention. User Tasks These are the tasks you want the user to be able to complete. • Check the status of your next box • Check the status of your pending orders
58. information architecture
59. task flow analysis
60. user interface flow
61. test early & often
62. prototyping for Mobile
64. beta launch -> Live
65. key learnings • Business as usual while over-hauling a business is incredibly tough work • We have had key project team members leave due to the hectic nature of running a business and creating a new platform • Maintain focus on customer needs • Don’t be distracted by growth. You are at critical juncture where lack of focus can delay project plans significantly
66. key learnings • Hybrid model kinda works • Lean In-house dev team • Combined with Heavy out-sourced Design & Dev team • Looking back, we would move towards in-house sooner rather than later after majority of work is completed BUT hiring is tough (for everyone) • Learn from Enterprise • Be great at documentation, process design • Identify bottlenecks early and work on removing obstacles
67. think - make - check
68. measuring velocity
69. measuring performance
70. metrics checklist credit : luxr.co
71. metrics checklist credit : luxr.co
72. think - make - check
73. think about Direction = Vision + Strategy Direction = Vision + Strategy And for the company to be successful it needs to be capable to pursue that direction.
 
 Success = Direction x Capability
 
 Capability has two main drivers...
 
 Capability = Competence x Capacity Competence is how good we are at doing something and it's driven by 4 main factors; Competence = Communication x Skills x Experience x Information Capacity however is how fast we are at doing it and it's driven by how many resources we have (money, people, assets) and how productive or efficient we are with those resources. Capacity = Resources x Efficiency credit : http://dcnorris.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/algebra-what-is-role-af-coo.html
74. • Organisational health • Talent • Inventory • Feedback Loops • Processes • Procedures • Controls • Systems • Planning • Reporting • and Troubleshooting think about Direction = Vision + Strategy
75. when you get back to your office … Examine • 5 problems you listed • 5 tests you would like to conduct Get started!
76. don’t have the right team yet? here are some great books to read
77. tools you can use • Primarily use Google Docs • Draw is great for task flow diagrams • I favor BPMN • We also use diagramming tools like Cacoo • For prototyping • Paper, Sketch, Mockflow, Balsamiq, Mockflow, Fireworks, Photoshop works depending on your team • For sharing visual designs and collaboration • Google Draw, Invision • For usability testing • Silverback or Moray • For Mobile Usability testing, setting up a rig for camera is quite easy.
78. don’t be afraid to fail
79. thank you @michaelon9 see you around at Agile SG #agilesg UXSG #uxsg ProductCamp SG #pcampsg