iGap 2013, Assumptions & Experiments Workshop

© LUXR.CO February 2013

Assumptions, Experiments and MVPs

iGap 2012Dublin, Ireland

CORE SKILLS FOR LEAN STARTUPS



Ask yourself:

What 3 assumptions about your customers

do you have that, if you are wrong, your

business will fail.

Write down 3.


Stand upSay your nameWeird/Awesome

Who’s in the room?LIGHTNING FAST!

Context (startup, enterprise, consultancy)Role (biz/product, developer, design)



The LUXr Core Curriculum helps startups deliver products that customers want, need and love to buy.

[email protected] • http://luxr.co twitter: @luxrco • www.facebook.com/LUXrInc

LUXr is the trusted coach that helps company founders through their hardest business problems.


Janice Fraser

@LUXRCO@clevergirl

www.luxr.co

TWEET!


A class on how to produce an awesome UI

This is not...

(How do you know itʼs awesome?)

A session on making production wireframes or photoshop comps

(How do you know these arenʼt a waste of valuable time?)

A “perfect approach” or a rigid point of view on what makes “Great UX.”

(1000s of entrepreneurs have used these techniques to discover an ideal UX.)


This is not...

dogma


Business Model Canvas? Lean Canvas?

Sure, either one.


DisclaimerI am not an expert in your business.

Only you can be the expert in your business.

My job is:• to ask the unasked questions;• to challenge assumptions;• and give you tools to succeed.


My perspective on Lean Startup & UX3 Workshops

AssumptionsExperiments“Smallification”

And if we have time…MVPPivot Practice!

Today...


Lean Startup(in 15 min)


Lean Startup is NOT

Cheap Startup

Fast Startup

Shortcut Startup


Low-Ambition

Lean Startup is NOT


THE OPPOSITE OF FAT STARTUP

Lean Startup is NOT


An approach for building companies that are creating new products and services in situations of extreme uncertainty.

The approach advocates creating small products that test the entrepreneurʼs assumptions, and using customer feedback to evolve the product, thereby reducing waste.

Lean Startup is...


THE NEW CLASSICS

1. List your assumptions.2. Understand your customers.3. Experiment.4. Adjust direction based on evidence.


Get out of the

building


CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT

1. Validate the market for your idea and build a product that solves customersʼ needs.

2. Find a repeatable, cost-effective model for acquiring customers.

3. Acquire customers.

4. Deploy the right organization for scaling.




A pitch is not customer development


“The courage to speak truths, pleasant or unpleasant, fosters communication and trust.

“The courage to discard failing solutions and seek new ones encourages simplicity.

“The courage to seek real, concrete answers creates feedback.”

—Kent Beck

The Influence of Agile


Build measure

learn!



Lean Startup advocates experiments & learning


}


Victory is measured in

learning.


This will change how you think

about your role, your work, your

team, your process.


Plot the difference

THINK

release

MAKErelease

MAKErelease

MAKE

time

Risk

(unv

alid

ated

eff

ort)


Lots of little wigglesRi

sk (u

nval

idat

ed e

ffor

t)

time


unva

lidat

ed e

ffor

t

time

Each wiggle is a learning cycle.

MAKE

releaseMAKE

THINK

CHECK

MAKE

THINK


How will you learn?

Quantitative Qualitative

Generative

Evaluative

InterviewsSurveys

Metrics Usability


Not an MVP for lemonade


User Experience


A personʼs perceptions and responses that

result from the use or anticipated use of a

product, service or system.

User Experience is...

product UI UX

via Ed Lea: http://design.org/blog/difference-between-ux-and-ui-subtleties-explained-cereal


Generative Research • Ideation • Mental models • Participatory Design • Contextual Inquiry • Concept Maps • Behavior Models • Test Results • Competitive AnalysisTHINK

Personas • Sketches • Prototypes • Wireframes • Value Prop • Landing View • Hypotheses • Comps • Deployed CodeMAKE

Evaluative Research • A/B Testing • Site Analytics • Usability Testing • Funnel Analysis • Interruptive SurveysCHECK

THINK

MAKE

CHECK

Reduce cycle time,not build time

UX cycles = Lean Startup learning loops


Needs1. I need...2. I want...3. My goal is...

UsesMary can...

Features

Users

Sketches, wireframes, pixels

Business thinking goes here

whywhathow

PrototypesUser Stories

Themed Releases

This Week

Design > UI THINK

MAKECHECK

BUILDMEASURE

LEARN


UX brings 10* years

of experience, methods, and

patterns of work.

*20, 30, 50 years


UX people are EXPERTS at “getting out of the building”


The setup.


The job.


Assumptions

My assumption: You donʼt want to waste your time, your career, your patience, or your friendship building something that has no chance of success.

Workshop


AssumptionsUse a sharpie, work independently, write one idea per sticky.

Write down 10 assumptions that you & your team must validate in order to be sure the business idea is a good one.

Underline the one word or phrase that summarizes each assumption.

Post the teams assumptions on the wall, do a quiet read.

Discuss to understand. Stack any duplicates.

Divide into 2 piles: Will it kill the company if weʼre wrong?

Stack Rank the top pile.

Choose the top assumption to move forward into the next step.

Workshop


Examples1. Many people will pay to have someone get dogfood or have

odd jobs done.2. People want to run errands like getting dogfood.3. We believe it is legal in the country of operation 4. This service is useful for disorganized people. 5. This service is useful to time-poor people. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.


Things To Note Broad ideation helps us find the best thoughts.

For fast ideation have a specific prompt, work independently, use paper and pen, set a time limit, and define a number of ideas to create.

Ideation applies to many logical thought processes, not just identifying features.

Ideation must be followed by efficient decision-making.

Arbitrary decisions are necessary when you have little or no data.

For best results, do ideation with multiple people.

Multi-person ideation relieves pressure for anyone to be a “genius”.

Independent ideation, followed by group understanding, followed by fast decision-making is a uniquely efficient pattern of work.


ExperimentsWorkshop

Work independently, use a sharpie and white paper.

At the top of the paper, state the assumption as hypothesis that can be proved or disproved.

Design an experiment to learn if this is true. Briefly describe it.

State how you will know if the hypothesis is valid or invalid. This can be quantitative evidence or qualitative.

How much time/money/effort will it take?

Tape them all to the walls.

Discuss as a group.


Experiment FrameworkEvery experiment has three parts:

1. A hypothesis that is provable/disprovable2. The experiment itself; the thing you build 3. An indicator of result

For Example:

We believe people like [customer type] have a need for [need/action/behavior].

The smallest thing we can do to prove that need is [experiment].

We will know we have succeeded when [quantitative/measurable outcome] or [qualitative/observable outcome].


Example Experiments

assumption experiment measurable/observable outcome

busy people need a service to help them get menial stuff done

Prevail upon friend who runs 300-person company

Set up a “shop” in reception and see if we can get jobs.

5% of employees will make a hire. 1 repeat booking

2 wks

same ad in 10 different offices, diff types of companies 2 weeks.


SmallificationWorkshop

Take an experiment that was not your own.

On a fresh sheet of paper, redesign the experiment:

WHAT would you do to get approximately the same learning...

...IN 2 DAYS?

...IN 2 WEEKS?

...IN 2 MONTHS?

[each person on the team chooses one time scale]

Present your experiment proposal to your team.

Decide which experiment to run.


More Things To Note

Progress not a function of the quality, size, or # of releases.

Smallification can be done by adjusting scope or fidelity.

Smaller/faster experiments are usually better. Behavioral experiments are usually better. Small, behavioral experiments are usually best.

Founders must balance size/quality and speed of learning.

The best option is often not obvious.

There is usually insufficient data to make a rational decision The decision-maker is therefore often going to be wrong. Wrong decisions are expected and usually not fatal.

Progress is measured in sequential cycles of learning.


MVPWork independently, with a sharpie write one idea per sticky.

Write 10 stickies that represent what your customer needs.

Divide them into 2 piles — 5 that matter more, 5 that matter less.

Stack-rank the top pile and set the others aside.

On stickies, write 10 product features that support that top need.

Working at the wall, make a 2x2: Important/Not and Hard/Easy.

Place your stickies individually.

Remove the stickies below the line.

Together, stack rank the stickies on the left.

Decide where to cut off the MVP.

Workshop


Things To Note (last one)Product roadmaps are worse than useless in a startup.

On-time, on-budget delivery isnʼt helpful if you built the wrong thing.

Build the smallest possible release to deliver on the use.

Smallifying a product release is easier when you approach the question incrementally and stepwise.

Focusing on a small, single-use product makes it easier to get right.

Weʼre not rejecting the big vision. Put your imagined, full-featured solution out on paper, set it aside. You will understand it more rationally after making the small thing.


And now the big finish.


1. Ideate with friends.

2. Go broad.

3. Say “Tell me about this one.”

4. Ask “who has the D?”

5. Make informed but arbitrary decisions.

6. Prove it.

7. Question perfection.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Entrepreneurs


1. Dump & Sort

2. Working at the Wall

3. Blue-tape 2x2

4. Dot-Voting

4 Power Tools for Entrepreneurs