Product Price may not always correlate to value:
Warren Buffet said, “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” The project budget, schedule, and specifications constitute the project’s price. In other words, price comprises cost, time, and scope, otherwise known as the “triple constraints.” Most projects are measured by price, but price does not always correlate to value. Of the projects that met triple constraints, Standish group research shows, only 13% of the projects had yielded very high value and 27% of the projects yielded high value1. This means, around 60% of the projects yielded average to low value. Thus, sometimes, you pay the price for a project but do not get corresponding value.
It is interesting to note that 20% of the customer application development features are often used, 30% of the features are infrequently used and 50% of the features are hardly ever used as per Standish group research. This means that major percent of performing organization’s price does not correlate to value generation. Businesses incur tremendous price where as they do not realize maintenance p organizations incur to support all the product features may not yield return on investment.
What is missing?
I reflected on my experience and also reached out to teams to learn what can bridge this gap. Quite interestingly, I got collective feedback that states “Either we fail to understand end user experience or we do not give much weight-age to end user experience”. According to Wikipedia, User experience (UX) involves a person’s emotions about using a particular product, system or service. User experience highlights the experiential, effective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership.
User experience is no more a choice, it is means of survival
Steve jobs once said “You have got to start with customer experience and work back towards the technology – not the other way round”. User Experience design is no more about usability, it is about value. It is no more the role of one person or department, it is culture. It is no more a choice, it is means of survival. “74% of business believe user experience is key for improving sales, conversation and loyalty”. Thus, we cannot afford to underestimate the impact of our user experience.
Value gets generated when product vision is paired with user needs
My experience tells me that products are unable to generate value when product vision is not paired with user needs it fulfills. It is important that we define product vision with focus on below attributes.
1. Who is going to use our product?
2. What business needs our product will address?
3. What value/differentiation our product is expected to bring?
4. What attributes of our product are critical to bring the expected differentiation compared to our competitors?
How agile planning events help us nurture user experience
In Agile, planning is continuous and happens periodically. Once product vision is in place and portfolio board positions the product as part of its road-map, below inter-dependent agile planning events help us evolve customer valued products.
1. Product road-map planning exercise: This exercise engages stakeholders and ignites stakeholder interaction with emphasis on “user needs and their navigation preference”. It extracts user experience in-terms user stories that support user goals. It enables user personas to envisage the product road-map from their usage perspective to meet their needs. It then aligns user needs with business objectives and provides us the guidance for the subsequent planning events.
2. Release planning exercise: This exercise focuses on planning value incrementally based on the direction provided by Product road-map planning exercise. Early releases tries to focus on planning minimum viable product features. Later releases try to focus on adding flexibility, safety and usability features. Release planning exercise provides guidance for the sprints involved. The outcome of these events will be considered in upcoming product road-map planning events.
3. Sprint planning exercise: In accordance with Release planning guidance, sprint planning exercise focuses on prioritizing user stories for the sprint and setting sprint goal based on team commitment. The outcome of these events will be considered in upcoming release planning events.
4. Daily Planning exercise: In accordance with Sprint Planning, prioritized stories will be planned and dependencies will be discussed and resolved.
Thus agile teams plan product construction in layers and they recur periodically. Jeff Pattern suggested story mapping technique to derive product planning road-map and objective based on user goals/needs. User needs/goals are sequenced exactly in the order, users wish to access on the product. Each of the goals are then elaborated vertically in-terms of tasks that users wish to perform to fulfill their goals. In practice, user stories may be written to describe the user tasks. Users are then asked to prioritize necessary or less optional tasks towards the top and optional tasks towards the end as described below.
If we read the activities across the top of the system, we can understand end-to-end use of the system. This way, we can ensure product road-map is aligned to fulfill user needs. Coherent group of features that consider the span of business functionality and user activities are then chosen. Feature that are necessary or bare minimum for the product to work are considered for the first release. Features that support flexibility, safety and look and Feel are then prioritized for subsequent releases. Release planning and sprint planning events are then performed to support the road-map guidance. The output of release planning event will be considered while re-planning product road-map during the project life cycle. This way, user needs drive agile planning events.
The User experience does not start at purchase, it begins when user has a need. By pairing the product with user needs, the role of marketing shifts from generating demand to generating awareness. 70% of the buying experiences are based on how the customers feel they are treated. Active, two-way, positive interactions that begin soon after a purchase is made have greatest potential long-term value.
Thus agile adoption helps bridge the gap through nurturing user experience. This way, our product usability and value can be enhance.
References:
1. Exceeding Value – Standish Group Research Study
2. https://www.marketingtechblog.com/user-experience/
3. www.agileproductdesign.com
Warren Buffet said, “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” The project budget, schedule, and specifications constitute the project’s price. In other words, price comprises cost, time, and scope, otherwise known as the “triple constraints.” Most projects are measured by price, but price does not always correlate to value. Of the projects that met triple constraints, Standish group research shows, only 13% of the projects had yielded very high value and 27% of the projects yielded high value1. This means, around 60% of the projects yielded average to low value. Thus, sometimes, you pay the price for a project but do not get corresponding value.
It is interesting to note that 20% of the customer application development features are often used, 30% of the features are infrequently used and 50% of the features are hardly ever used as per Standish group research. This means that major percent of performing organization’s price does not correlate to value generation. Businesses incur tremendous price where as they do not realize maintenance p organizations incur to support all the product features may not yield return on investment.
What is missing?
I reflected on my experience and also reached out to teams to learn what can bridge this gap. Quite interestingly, I got collective feedback that states “Either we fail to understand end user experience or we do not give much weight-age to end user experience”. According to Wikipedia, User experience (UX) involves a person’s emotions about using a particular product, system or service. User experience highlights the experiential, effective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership.
User experience is no more a choice, it is means of survival
Steve jobs once said “You have got to start with customer experience and work back towards the technology – not the other way round”. User Experience design is no more about usability, it is about value. It is no more the role of one person or department, it is culture. It is no more a choice, it is means of survival. “74% of business believe user experience is key for improving sales, conversation and loyalty”. Thus, we cannot afford to underestimate the impact of our user experience.
Value gets generated when product vision is paired with user needs
My experience tells me that products are unable to generate value when product vision is not paired with user needs it fulfills. It is important that we define product vision with focus on below attributes.
1. Who is going to use our product?
2. What business needs our product will address?
3. What value/differentiation our product is expected to bring?
4. What attributes of our product are critical to bring the expected differentiation compared to our competitors?
How agile planning events help us nurture user experience
In Agile, planning is continuous and happens periodically. Once product vision is in place and portfolio board positions the product as part of its road-map, below inter-dependent agile planning events help us evolve customer valued products.
1. Product road-map planning exercise: This exercise engages stakeholders and ignites stakeholder interaction with emphasis on “user needs and their navigation preference”. It extracts user experience in-terms user stories that support user goals. It enables user personas to envisage the product road-map from their usage perspective to meet their needs. It then aligns user needs with business objectives and provides us the guidance for the subsequent planning events.
2. Release planning exercise: This exercise focuses on planning value incrementally based on the direction provided by Product road-map planning exercise. Early releases tries to focus on planning minimum viable product features. Later releases try to focus on adding flexibility, safety and usability features. Release planning exercise provides guidance for the sprints involved. The outcome of these events will be considered in upcoming product road-map planning events.
3. Sprint planning exercise: In accordance with Release planning guidance, sprint planning exercise focuses on prioritizing user stories for the sprint and setting sprint goal based on team commitment. The outcome of these events will be considered in upcoming release planning events.
4. Daily Planning exercise: In accordance with Sprint Planning, prioritized stories will be planned and dependencies will be discussed and resolved.
Thus agile teams plan product construction in layers and they recur periodically. Jeff Pattern suggested story mapping technique to derive product planning road-map and objective based on user goals/needs. User needs/goals are sequenced exactly in the order, users wish to access on the product. Each of the goals are then elaborated vertically in-terms of tasks that users wish to perform to fulfill their goals. In practice, user stories may be written to describe the user tasks. Users are then asked to prioritize necessary or less optional tasks towards the top and optional tasks towards the end as described below.
If we read the activities across the top of the system, we can understand end-to-end use of the system. This way, we can ensure product road-map is aligned to fulfill user needs. Coherent group of features that consider the span of business functionality and user activities are then chosen. Feature that are necessary or bare minimum for the product to work are considered for the first release. Features that support flexibility, safety and look and Feel are then prioritized for subsequent releases. Release planning and sprint planning events are then performed to support the road-map guidance. The output of release planning event will be considered while re-planning product road-map during the project life cycle. This way, user needs drive agile planning events.
The User experience does not start at purchase, it begins when user has a need. By pairing the product with user needs, the role of marketing shifts from generating demand to generating awareness. 70% of the buying experiences are based on how the customers feel they are treated. Active, two-way, positive interactions that begin soon after a purchase is made have greatest potential long-term value.
Thus agile adoption helps bridge the gap through nurturing user experience. This way, our product usability and value can be enhance.
References:
1. Exceeding Value – Standish Group Research Study
2. https://www.marketingtechblog.com/user-experience/
3. www.agileproductdesign.com