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Define the vision for your IT project with this exercise | I


























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The
Vision Box exercise is a powerful way to help define the vision of the
ultimate product, motivate the project team, and generate enthusiasm
among stakeholders. Learn techniques for effectively facilitating this
exercise.


—————————————————————————————————————


As every project manager learns, change is difficult. Executives,
stakeholders, and potential users resist change for all sorts of
personal, political, and emotional reasons. The Windows guru is
unlikely to champion the migration to Linux, and the resident SAP
master-of-the-universe probably won’t wave the flag for the switch to
Oracle. When people have reputations, livelihoods, and self-esteem at
stake, resistance to change should be expected, and project managers
must have a toolkit that enables them to become agents of change.


By now, every project manager is familiar with the famous “elevator
pitch” — the short, pithy paragraph that describes your project
concisely and compellingly, just in case the CEO corners you in the
elevator and asks, “What are you guys building, anyway?” The elevator
pitch became famous during the dot-com boom, when venture capitalists
were so busy listening to appeals for funding that entrepreneurs only
got a few minutes to explain their initial business plan, and it needed
to be convincing and unique. The ability to describe the features,
benefits, and business value of a project quickly and persuasively is a
powerful marketing and motivational tool.


In the world of agile project management, there’s a well-known
technique for developing a marketing message that can drive the product
development effort for your project. The Vision Box exercise,
championed by Agile Manifesto signatory Jim Highsmith, is a simple and
easy to implement process that is extraordinarily powerful and can be
adopted by agile or traditional project teams. (Read my interview with Highsmith about light methodologies.)


The Vision Box exercise is typically employed at the start of a new
project. It’s usually run as a facilitated session with members of the
executive team, as well as a broad spectrum of participants from the
stakeholder and user community. The basic concept is straightforward:
If your new product was marketed in a box, like cereal or consumer
electronics, what would be the marketing copy on the box? What product
features, benefits, and attributes would you highlight on the box that
would attract shoppers and convince them to buy your product? Like an
expanded version of the elevator pitch, the Vision Box exercise aims to
construct a convincing story in a crisp and visual manner, emphasizing
the project’s unique benefits and avoiding long, technical descriptions
in favor of snappy headlines. The exercise can result in a product
name, a graphic that would highlight the wonderful characteristics of
the new product, and some catchy phrases that encapsulate the benefits
of using your proposed invention.


Proponents of the Vision Box exercise conduct the meetings similar
to brainstorming sessions, facilitating the group as they come up with
a list of possible features and benefits to be included on this
imaginary product package. It’s common for the group to digress into
either very vague or very technical descriptions based on their
expertise and point of view. When facilitating the Vision Box exercise,
you should guide the team away from bits and bytes and towards
marketing statements that sum up the product’s attractive features and
inspire users and stakeholders to support, and even anticipate, the
product’s creation. One technique used to guide this exercise is the
old journalism advice of asking Who? What? When? Where? Why?



  • Who? By guiding the team to describe the audience
    for this product, you help clarify the target customer and ensure that
    the language used is intended for that audience rather than for the
    technical team.

  • What? By describing what the product is, you spell out some of the look and feel questions that accompany every IT effort.

  • When? This question begins the process of project
    scheduling by illuminating the stakeholders’ time expectations
    regarding the project. It also helps you dig into their expectations by
    defining the circumstances in which the new product would be used.

  • Where? This question helps the team articulate the
    scope of the project. For instance, will the new product be used by
    everyone in the organization, or only in the tax department, or
    somewhere in between?

  • Why? This is the most critical question to answer.
    Why would the users and stakeholders make the painful effort to change
    their existing habits and migrate to this new product? This question is
    also expanded to explain why you’re developing this particular product
    as opposed to another one that some stakeholders may champion, or that
    might be bought off the shelf in, well, a package.


One reason why Vision Box exercises are so successful at defining a
project’s vision is because they are fun and engaging. I’ve found that,
unlike boring requirements definition efforts (which can be like
pulling teeth), the Vision Box exercise gets folks to participate. One
problem you’ll likely encounter is that you’ll get too much
information, which means a good portion of the exercise is spent
prioritizing and focusing the ideas. By using the product box metaphor,
it helps the team understand that every idea can’t be represented, and
that, in order to catch the consumer’s eye, they need to highlight the
three or four best, most persuasive benefits on the imaginary box. The
outcome of this exercise is usually a sheet of flip-chart paper with a
mockup of the product box, full of big stars and exploding graphics
containing the concise and appealing statements that will compel users
to want the product.


Besides the obvious benefit of helping the group define their vision
of the ultimate product and express their expectations in non-technical
language, the ensuing vision is a powerful force for motivating the
project team that will develop the new solution. Detailed product
requirements and functional specifications can often be overwhelming,
and the use of a simple vision can help keep your effort on track and
restrain developers from costly digressions into gold-plated
development or “feature-itis.” By helping developers and stakeholders
keep their eyes on the prize, the Vision Box exercise can help avoid
product bloat and scope creep. By referring stakeholders and your
project team back to the Vision Box, you can protect against the
never-ending project and remind everyone why you started this effort in
the first place.


Hopefully, by doing the Vision Box exercise, you can create
enthusiasm and anticipation among your stakeholders, inspire your
project teams to creative heights, and keep the project effort focused
on the elements that generate the most business value.


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Publié par L'EVEILLE77 à l'adresse 08:32

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