Jan 19, 2022 | by Budi Tanrim
Start a project with alignment
Starting a project is tricky for many reasons.
One of the reasons is everyone has different ideas. The heated debate can take place with no meaningful progress.
The other common reason is that people jump to a solution too quickly. The solution is more concrete, so it’s easier to grasp than the problem’s abstraction. Some companies “have a long list of features, and when…nobody uses it, people are scratching their heads wondering why.” said Chris Carter, the founder of MeYou Health.
Consider the Problem Rundown activity. Here’s what it looks like:
Our users are …… (users) ……
Their struggles are …… (pain points) ……
We know this is true because …… (data/observation) ……
Solving this will be great for our users because ……… and also benefit our organization because ………
It’s a simple activity to bring alignment to your team. Also, this activity can lead to a realization, “Wow, we don’t know what the users’ pain points are.”
Here’s how you can facilitate the working session:
- 5 min: Diverge on users, be as specific as possible
- 5 min: Synthesis similar users
- Note: Create a column for each user
- 5 min: Diverge on the pain points
- 5 min: Diverge the data/observation
- Note: Don’t forget to label an assumption. If there are a lot of assumptions, stop the activity and discuss how to validate them
- 10 min: Synthesis and group the pain points by theme
- 10 min: Have an open discussion. Converge on a few to solve
- 10 min: Fill in the last blank statement. Normally your team will want to explain the benefit for users first, then discuss the benefit for the organization by solving the problem.
Diverge, synthesis, converge. Remember?
Don’t forget to invite all functions: engineers, data team, anyone who is involved.
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