NYT Product Discovery Activity Guide

PRODUCT DISCOVERY

ACTIVITY GUIDE

HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE

1. Determine which milestone you’re currently trying to achieve: Are

you trying to better understand the product opportunity, your users,

the problem you need to solve? Do you need to validate that the

problem actually exists? Do you want to generate or narrow down

solution ideas? Are you ready to test your ideas? Are you trying to

figure out next steps, based on your user test findings?

2. Choose the combination of activities that will best suit your team’s

needs for your current milestone and help you move forward

confidently to the next one. (If your team feels they need more

clarity on a specific issue after completing an exercise, build upon it

with a complementary one.)

3. Most of all, keep an open mind, and feel free to try new activities!

What would you like to accomplish during this session?

Understand the Opportunity

Understand the User

Understand the Problem

Confirm the Problem

Identify Possible Solutions

Narrow the Field

Create Tests

Validate with Users

Pivot on Learnings

Create MVP & Stories

The Product Discovery Activity Guide is intended to inspire

Product Discovery teams to innovate and work together in

smarter, leaner ways. This collection consists of tools, practices,

and activities that can be used in various combinations, tailored

to your team’s specific goals. Many of these activities were

inspired by game-like exercises and the creative thinking

approaches used by many technology start-ups.

This guide was created by Jim Lamiell, Al Ming, Priya Ollapally, Josh Turk and Christine Yom of the Product Architecture Group.

We’re still working on making this Activity Guide as useful as possible for our Product Discovery teams.

If you have feedback, please send it to: [email protected], or just stop by and let us know what you think!

UNDERSTAND THE OPPORTUNITY

Opportunity Assessment ReviewReview the Product Opportunity Assessment with the team and stakeholders to ensure that everyone understands the problem,

the context, and how we will measure success.

Review the Product Opportunity Assessment with the team and stakeholders to ensure everyone understands the problem, the context, and how you will measure success. It describes the problem to be solved, and usually includes a business justification. Its purpose is either to a) prevent the company from wasting time and money on poor opportunities, or b) understand what is

required to succeed for those that are good opportunities.

This review session is an opportunity to elaborate on any points that are unclear and need further detail. The team also validates that the prospective product or feature seems feasible from a technical or operational perspective.


Instructions

1. Describe the session goals and the outcome of the session.

2. The team reviews each area of the Product Opportunity Assessment.

3. Everyone asks questions to create clarity on what you want to

accomplish.

4. Document the questions. Who had the question? What was the

question? What was the answer, if any? e.g. “Jane: What would this

need from a recommendation team? A: Unknown at this time.”

5. Document observations, suggestions, or problems. Who said it?

What was it (observation, suggestion, complaint, etc.)? Are any

action items needed?

Participants: Entire team Time: 1 hour+

Objective

CC Image courtesy of denkwerk GmbH on Flickr


Business Model CanvasVisualize a new business model idea—or rethink your company’s

current business model—to highlight key drivers and create a shared understanding.

The mapping of an existing business model, including its strengths and weaknesses, is an essential starting point to improve your current model and/or develop new future models. This lightweight tool is helpful when starting a new business or creating a new product line to highlight key

risks and frame your work.

This is powerful for collaboratively visualizing a business model. Individuals can also use this to quickly sketch out a business idea. At its best, this exercise helps you develop strategic directions for the future by outlining new and/or improved business models. At the very least, it

leads to a refined and shared understanding.


Instructions

Mapping business models works best when players work on a poster on the wall. You will need:

• Large print of a Business Canvas Poster• Sticky notes in different colors• Flip chart markers• Camera to capture results

There are several variations of the Business Model Canvas Poster. The one described here is the most basic one, which is the mapping of an existing business model, its assessment, and the formulation of improved or potential new business models.

1. Start by letting players describe the different customer segments your organization serves. Players should put up different color sticky notes on the Canvas Poster for each segment. A group of customers represents a distinct segment if they have distinct needs and you offer them distinct value propositions (e.g. a newspaper serves readers and advertisers), or if they require different channels, customer relationships, or revenue streams.

2. Players should map out the value propositions that your organization offers each customer segment, using same color sticky notes for value propositions and customer segments that go together. If a value proposition targets two different customer segments, use sticky note colors of both.

3. Then players map out the remaining building blocks of your business model with sticky notes. Always try to use the colors of the related customer segments.

4. When the the whole business model is mapped, players can start assessing its strengths and weaknesses by putting up green (strength) and red (weakness) sticky notes alongside the strong and weak elements.

5. Based on the visualization of your mapped out business model, players can now either try to improve the existing business model or generate new alternative business models. Ideally, players use one or several additional Business Model Canvas Posters to map out improved business models or new alternatives.

Gamestorming.com, Strategyzer.com, Leanstackhttp://www.gamestorming.com/?s=business+model+canvas

http://leanstack.com/

Participants: 1-6 Time: 15 min-2 days

Objective

CC Image courtesy of szwerink on Flickr


Lightning DemosTake a look at how competitors’ products are solving

similar problems.

This exercise helps the team get a large amount of information on the table and quickly build understanding.

During the exercise, everyone should be jotting down questions. Use the “how might we” format to capture opportunities that might be interesting to explore. For example, “How might we build trust?” or “How might we figure out the user’s style?” Often, these end up being

extremely useful in next steps for the team.


Instructions

Look at competitors’ products. Try capping the discussion at 10 minutes

to keep things moving and help everyone pay attention. It can also be

helpful to look at non-competitive products that solve a similar kind

of problem in a different market. Everyone should be jotting down

questions on sticky notes. The “how might we” format can capture

opportunities that might be interesting to explore. For example: “How

might we build trust?” or “How might we figure out the user’s style?”

(Source: Google Ventures)

Google Ventures: http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-understandday-1

Participants: Entire team Time: 10 minutes

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Bill Roehl on Flickr


Review Industry & Macro ResearchKnow your markets, competitors, customer wants and needs,

and what it takes to be competitive in your market.

This exercise helps the team get a large amount of information on the table and quickly build understanding.

During the exercise, everyone should be jotting down questions. Use the “how might we” format to capture opportunities that might be interesting to explore. For example, “How might we build trust?” or “How might we figure out the user’s style?” Often, these end up being

extremely useful in next steps for the team.


Instructions

1. To understand your market and target audience, look at both primary

research from internal sources and secondary research from external

sources, such as industry business publications and market reports.

2. If you have existing internal user research for your product, be sure

to review it. If not, talk about whatever data you do know about your

customers.

3. Also look at any analytics you have, such as data on feature usage,

where customers drop off your site, and conversion rates.

4. Once you’ve gathered all relevant research, a mind-mapping exercise

could help organize your research inventory by getting it down on

paper, along with any notes you may have.

Google Ventures, http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-understandday-1

Participants: Each team member Time: 10 minutes

Objective

CC Image courtesy of UCL Institute of Education on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Proto-PersonasDevelop a set of quick, ad hoc personas that depict your customers (or those who are encountering this

situation or problem).

Proto-personas are a variant of the typical persona, which is usually heavily researched. Your team starts with assumptions about who is using your product or service and what is motivating them to do so, and then does research to validate them. You want to capture everyone’s

assumptions and encapsulate the organization’s beliefs.

Proto-personas provide a starting point for evaluating ideas and early design hypotheses. They help reinforce corporate awareness of the customer’s point of view to ensure it’s included in strategic planning. Coming to a group consensus on the personas helps everyone focus on

the customers and empathize with them.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Instructions

Persona Format1. Sketch proto-personas on paper, using a hand-drawn quadrant.

2. Top left box: Persona’s name and role, with a rough sketch of him/her

3. Top right box: Basic demographic information, with a focus on information that predicts a specific type of behavior

4. Bottom left box: User’s needs and frustrations with the current product or situation, the specific pain points your product is trying to solve, and/or the opportunity you’re trying to address

5. Bottom right box: Feature and solution ideas Persona Creation Process1. Start with a group brainstorm. Team members offer their opinions on who

the project should be targeting and how that would affect each potential user’s use of the product.

2. Once the brainstorming is complete, narrow down the ideas to an initial set of three or four personas you believe are most likely to be the target audience.

3. Try to differentiate the personas around needs and roles, rather than by demographic.

Persona ValidationOnce your proto-personas are created and agreed upon, take them into the field to begin validating their accuracy. As you learn from your ongoing research, you’ll quickly find out how accurate your initial persona guesses are. This will inform you on how to adjust your target audience and persona, which should be revamped and rewritten as needed.

http://www.jeffgothelf.com/blog/lean-ux-book/#sthash.7aXWU9Tr.PcpUM1Un.dpbshttp://uxmag.com/articles/using-proto-personas-for-executive-alignment

Participants: 3-10 Time: 1 hour

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Rob Enslin on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Empathy MapUnderstand your customers within a given context by

creating their profile based on what they think and feel, see and hear, and say and do.

This exercise helps your group gain a deeper understanding of a stakeholder in your business ecosystem (a client, prospect, partner, etc.) within a given context, such as a buying decision or an experience

using a product.

The empathy map can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. If you have a decent understanding of the person and context you want to map, you should be able to make a rough empathy map quickly. If you don’t understand the stakeholder very well, this exercise can help identify gaps in understanding and illuminate the things you

don’t yet know.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Instructions

The exercise can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. You should be able to make a rough empathy map quickly, if you have a decent understanding of the person and context you want to map.

1. Start by drawing a circle to represent the person. Give it a name and some identifying information, like a job title. It helps to think of a real person who roughly fits the profile, and keep them in mind as you proceed. In keeping with the idea of a “profile,” think of the circle as the profile of a person’s head and fill in some details. You might want to add eyes, mouth, nose, and maybe glasses or a hairstyle to differentiate the person from other profiles you might want to create. These details will help you project yourself into that person’s experience.

2. Determine a question you have for that stakeholder. What would you want to ask them or understand about a situation in their life? For example, if you want to understand a buying decision, you might ask “Why should I buy X?”

3. Divide the circle into sections that represent aspects of that person’s sensory experience. What are they thinking, feeling, saying, doing, hearing? Label the appropriate sections on the image.

4. Now it’s time for the “empathy” portion of the exercise. Try to project yourself into that person’s experience and the context you want to explore. Start filling in the diagram with real, tangible, sensory experiences. For example, when filling in the “hearing” section, think of what the person might hear and how they would hear it. In the “saying” section, write their thoughts as they would express them; don’t use your own words. The point is to truly understand and empathize with their situation so you can design a better product or service.

5. Check yourself: Ask others to review your map, make suggestions, and add details or context. The more a person can identify with the actual stakeholder, the better.

Empathy Map poster template: http://www.slideshare.net/AdilsonJardim/empathy-map-poster-3201288

http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/empathy-mapping/

Participants: 3-10 Time: 15–20 minutes

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Oliver Quinlan on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Pain-Gain MapCapture your users’ pains and gains to understand

what motivates and influences their decisions.

Many decisions often boil down to a person’s basic choices between benefit and harm.

This exercise helps develop an understanding of your users’ motivations and decisions. By capturing how they perceive

benefit and harm with regard to a certain context, your group may uncover the most relevant points to bring up in presenting to your organization or to influence users’ decisions. This key person may be the ultimate user of a product or may be the leader of an

organization whose approval is sought.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Instructions

1. Start by writing the key person’s name or creating a quick sketch of

him on a wall.

2. Ask about this person’s pains first by prompting the group to step

inside his mind and think and feel as he does. Capture the answers

on one side of the person:

• What does a bad day look like for him?

• What is he afraid of?

• What keeps him awake at night?

• What is he responsible for?

3. What obstacles stand in his way? A person’s gains can be the

inversion of the pain situation—or can go beyond. Capture these on

the opposite side by asking:

• What does this person want and aspire to?

• How does he measure success?

• Given the subject at hand, how could this person benefit?

• What can we offer this person?

4. Summarize and prioritize the top pains and gains from the

exercise. You can use them when developing presentations,

value propositions, or any other instance where you are trying to

influence a decision.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/pain-gain-map/

Participants: 3-10 Time: 10-15 minutes

Objective

CC Image courtesy of reway2007 on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Value Proposition CanvasMap, think though, and discuss your value propositions and

how they match your customers’ needs.

This thinking and design tool helps you design Value Propositions that match your customers’ needs and aids them in solving their problems. The Value Proposition Canvas guides you to problem-solution fit in a more structured, thoughtful way. It captures core

issues around customer problems and potential solutions.

The Value Proposition Canvas is based on two blocks from the Business Model Canvas: the Value Proposition and the Customer Segment. This exercise sketches out both in more detail with a

simple but powerful structure, which will allow for better strategic conversations and prepare you for testing both building blocks.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Instructions

1. Before starting the canvas, sketch a profile of your target customers. First, determine what they are trying to accomplish. This could be tasks they are trying to perform and complete, problems they are trying to solve, or needs they are trying to satisfy. Next, describe any negative emotions, costs, and risks that they might experience before, during, and after getting the job done. Then describe the benefits they expect, desire, or would be surprised by, which include utility, social gains, positive emotions, and cost savings.

2. Once the team has completed the customer profile, begin creating the Value Proposition Canvas. Divide a flip-chart sheet of paper into three sections: Products & Services, Gain Creators, and Pain Relievers.

See an example of the template: http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/downloads/value_proposition_canvas.pdf

3. In the Products & Services section: List all the products and services your value proposition is built around. Which products and services do you offer that help your customer get either a functional, social, or emotional job done, or help him/her satisfy basic needs? Rank all products and services according to their importance to your customer—are they crucial or trivial?

4. In the Gain Creators section: Describe how your products and services create customer gains. How do they create benefits your customer expects, desires or would be surprised by, including functional utility, social gains, positive emotions, and cost savings?

5. In the Pain Relievers section: Describe how your products and services alleviate customer pains. How do they eliminate or reduce negative emotions, undesired costs and situations, and risks your customer experiences or could experience before, during, and after getting the job done?

6. You can use the Value Proposition Canvas like the Business Model Canvas: plot it as a poster, post it up on the wall, then use sticky notes to start sketching.

Strategyzer.com, Strategyzer AGhttp://businessmodelalchemist.com/blog/2012/08/achieve-product-market-fit-with-our-brand-new-value-

proposition-designer.htmlhttp://businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas/vpc?_ga=1.216540690.564012849.1430337420

Participants: 3-10 Time: 45 min–1.5 hours

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Epicantus on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Customer Journey MapIllustrate the steps your customers go through when engaging with your product or the company, and how

they feel at various points along the way.

The customer journey map is an oriented graph that describes the journey of a user by representing the different touchpoints that characterize their step-by-step interaction with your product or

company.

The journey map is meant to engender a shared reference of the experience and consensus of both the good and the bad parts of it. It is also a means to something actionable—ideally something to

design around—and not an end in and of itself. Your map should feel like a catalyst, not a conclusion.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Instructions

Your team will be describing a possible scenario or mapping the experience for an existing product or service.

1. You will need a blank journey worksheet that shows the different stages of the customer journey (this is a rough timeline).

2. Choose a persona or create a new proto-persona from scratch.

3. Define a goal for this persona.

4. Look at what’s happening at each stage and the touchpoints that allow the user to reach this goal.

5. Describe the experience flow across the different stages and touchpoints. Some facets you may want to document in your map are:

Actions: What is the customer doing at each stage? What actions are they taking to move themselves on to the next stage? (Don’t list what your company or partners such as retailers are doing here. That will come later when we look at touchpoints).

Motivations: Why is the customer motivated to keep going to the next stage? What emotions are they feeling? Why do they care?

Questions: What are the uncertainties, jargon, or other issues preventing the customer from moving to the next stage?

Barriers: What structural, process, cost, implementation, or other barriers stand in the way of moving on to the next stage?

6. After the journey has been mapped, use it to highlight the gaps, pain points and opportunities of the experience, both from the perspective of the user and the company.

This is not the only way to create a customer journey. You may want to use a different lens to look at each stage or the journey, or perhaps treat the journey as a storyboard.

Service Design Tools; Harvard Business Review; Adaptive Path


Objective

Image courtesy of Richard McMurray/www.service-this.com

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Job StoriesIdentify opportunities for growth by deconstructing

a job that customers are trying to get done.

Writing Job Stories is a powerful way of evaluating the circumstances that arise in customers’ lives. Customers make decisions about what products to use because they find themselves with a problem they

would like to solve.

With an understanding of the “job” for which customers find themselves “hiring” a product or service, we can more accurately develop and market products and features well-tailored to what

customers are already trying to do.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Instructions

When writing job stories it’s important to focus on things such as context, causality and motivations instead of assumptions, subjectiveness, personas and implementations.

We start by framing each design problem as a job, focusing on the triggering event or situation, the progress and motivation, and the intended outcome:

[ Situation statement ] + [ Progress statement ] + [ Outcome statement ] .

Example: [When I’m running late for an appt & worried that I won’t be able to eat before], [I want something filling to eat on the go], [so that I have the energy to perform].

Tips for writing effective job stories:

Refine A Situation By Adding Contextual InformationThe more context we have for the situation, the easier it will be to craft a working solution which also handles any anxieties which can push a customer away from using a product or feature..

Job Stories Come From Real People Not PersonasJob stories should be derived from real customer feedback. You must talk to real people and uncover all the anxieties and contexts which were in play when they used your or a competitor’s product. Additionally, comb through any existing research you have on your users, pulling out any contextual or emotional data that might aid you in writing your job stories.

Design Modular Job Stories Which Features (solutions) Can Plug IntoWhen writing job stories, it’s important not to commingle the job with solutions. Doing so makes it difficult to figure out what went wrong when customers reject our ideas. Was your persona wrong? Was the feature wrong? Was it the wrong feature for the persona?

Add Forces To MotivationsIn the job story format of Situation — Motivations — Expected Outcomes, the Motivation stage can be enhanced by adding pull and push forces. Adding forces to a motivation is much like adding context to a situation. It’s the emotional component of the job story. By getting in touch with the emotions the customer is feeling we can design solutions that mitigate them.

http://alanklement.com/5-tips-job-story

Participants: Entire team Time: 1 hour

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Charles Knowles on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Ethnographic Field StudiesSit back and silently observe customers use your

product in their natural environment.

To fully understand your customers, witness how they behave in their natural environment while interacting with your particular product or

service.

This study is largely a hands-off, observation-based process, resulting in insights that provide a rich and nuanced understanding of the role a product plays in the user’s life. At the end, the team

should be able to turn their new wealth of qualitative learnings into approaches for how to understand and potentially address the user’s

unique needs and pain points.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Who is involved?

Ethnographic field studies require a recruiter to contact and source

potential participants; a note-taker for conducting the field study through

observation; and a team dedicated at the end of the study to analyzing

results and applying qualitative insights to the next milestone.

How is it done?

1. Identify the ideal target user and location for observation and recruit

based on those factors.

2. Develop a field guide, which for this kind of research may include

instructions for observing the participant and particular behaviors to

look out for if they arise.

3. Conduct the ethnography with each recruit individually, acting as

the note-taker and quiet observer in their natural environment. The

sessions can last from minutes to hours. Be sure to jot down any

potentially surprising or unexpected actions, phrasing, or attitudes.

4. After the completion of these interviews, the team will likely spend

several days combing through the participant responses, highlighting

particularly interesting answers or observations, and collecting them

into recommendations for addressing these users’ needs and wants.

Objective

Participants: 10+ Effort: High Time: Weeks

CC Image courtesy of Jens Schott Knudsen on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Contextual Inquiry InterviewsObserve users interacting with your product or prototype, asking probing questions into the

how and why of their actions.

When needing to understand the particular context in which your customers interact with your product or service, employ contextual

inquiry interviews to both observe and probe into the specific behaviors you’re curious about.

These interviews should include a healthy balance of questions delving into thoughts and emotions at moments of interest, as well as passive

observation of the participant demonstrating how the product or prototype is used to achieve their goals. After the interviews, the team

should be able to combine responses and observations into key insights that will drive understanding of user, context, and solution.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Who is involved?

Contextual inquiry interviews require a recruiter to find the appropriate

participants based on the research goals; a moderator who is capable of

understanding and accomplishing that healthy mix of probing questions

and passive observation during the interview; a note-taker during the

interview, to relieve that burden from the moderator; and a team to comb

through, analyze, and identify learnings for understanding the user or

proposed solution at the end of the process.

How is it done?

1. Identify several appropriate types of users to question and observe

— those either currently using your product, or exhibiting the sorts

of needs and behaviors that you’re interested in with other products

— and recruit them for in-house interviews. If the team would like

to engage with users directly in the field instead, spend this time

thinking of ideal locations for observing and interviewing participants

(outside a store, in a cafe, etc.).

2. Create an interview guide for the sorts of questions you would like to

pose to participants, as well as key actions or emotions to watch for

during observation.

3. Conduct the interviews with the interview guide in-hand. Be sure to

have the note-taker record extensive notes during the interviews,

even if you’re in the field, so the moderator can focus on engaging

with the participant and responding to facial cues.

4. Review the notes as a team after all the interviews. Pick out insights

that can identify any opportunities to solve your user’s needs or

problems, or if testing a prototype, determine whether it was validated

through user interaction in context.

Objective


CC Image courtesy of K2_UX on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Diary StudiesAsk customers to keep a daily diary of not just

how they use your product, but also their digital lives and habits.

Diaries offer a wide range of views into the lives of your target user because the participants recall their usage, behavior, and attitudes

while using the product in their natural context.

Participants are asked to keep a written or pictorial log of how they interact with, respond to, and feel about a product or service over time (usually a week or so), followed by a summary one-on-one

interview to discuss any recurring patterns or follow-up questions. The results of a diary study require a final synthesis and analysis

to understand the user, their motivations, and the broad needs and pain points that exist in their lives.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Who is involved?

Diary studies require a recruiter to both source the right kinds of

participants, and schedule emails for reminding them about the diary

exercises and/or new writing prompts; a moderator and note-taker for

the summary one-on-one interviews to follow-up on interesting entries;

and the team to comb through the diary entries and interview notes to

uncover key insights that inform the next milestone of the process.

How is it done?

1. Determine as a team the form the diary will take (digital, pen and

paper, etc.), how delivery of entries will be accomplished (email, mail,

etc.), and schedule for writing the entries (daily, hourly, etc.). Follow

this conversation up with a discussion of what questions or writing

prompts you’d like to pose to participants.

2. Recruit participants based on their habits, usage of your product, and

willingness to maintain a consistent diary record.

3. Ask the participants to start the diary with the first prompt, once both

the mechanics and recruitment pool have been achieved. Keep in

mind: if certain participants fail to respond or adequately answer

questions in their entries, don’t hesitate to reach out and correct any

deviance from expected results.

4. After the diary period has ended (from a couple days to a couple

weeks), conduct summary interviews with each participant individually.

5. Sit down as a team and review the interview notes and diary entries to

pick out useful qualitative insights on how participants currently use

your product or similar competitors, and what underserved problems

or needs exist in their lives.

Objective


CC Image courtesy of Kévin Couette on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Focus GroupsHave a conversation between you and a group of

your customers to understand their attitudes toward your product.

Focus groups are most valuable as guided discussions, between a moderator and a diverse collection of target users, to identify expectations and ideas around a particular product or service.

Keep in mind: focus groups are only useful when trying to assess user attitudes and perceptions toward a product; they cannot,

however, determine usability, largely because participants can be easily swayed by each other or rely on pure speculation to answer questions on product usage. Find valuable insights from a focus

group’s results, but attempt to further validate them with individual participants through one-on-one interviews.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Who is involved?

Focus groups require a recruiter to take careful steps to ensure that

participants of the focus group represent a diverse selection of actual

users (to prevent an echo-chamber effect); a moderator who can

effectively guide the conversation and give every participant a chance

to be heard; a note-taker that sits outside the room and listens in, or a

video recorder that can be reviewed afterward; and the team to analyze

results and propose next steps in understanding the user base.

How is it done?

1. Spend the time and effort to find the right kinds of participants for the

focus group: diverse, communicative, and willing to participate.

2. Create an interview guide, with potential questions or conversation

points, to loosely follow with participants.

3. During the focus group, have the moderator pay close attention to

points in the conversation when participants are exhibiting too much

influence over others, are relying too much on pure conjecture, or

tend to be quiet and evade questions; course-correct when needed,

but at the same time try to intervene as little as possible. Ensure that

a note-taker or video recorder is capturing results as well.

4. Reconvene after the focus group to pick out insightful ideas or

responses from the group and decide on the next steps to validate

these through individual interviews or other research methods.

Objective

Participants: 10+ Effort: Medium Time: Days

CC Image courtesy of BSA Badalona on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Site Intercept SurveysPresent customers in the midst of using your

product with a short, engaging survey.

Short questionnaires called site intercept surveys can be administered to real users, during moments when they are using the team’s website or application, to get a sense of their attitudes about or behavior with

the product.

With enough responses — usually one hundred or so; keep in mind that users should be able to opt out of the survey — the team can

gain knowledge of who uses the product, why they use it, and whether it served their needs properly at the time and in the context the survey

was taken.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Who is involved?

Site intercept surveys require a team to determine what sorts of site or

application behavior should qualify a user to receive the survey prompt,

as well as what questions should be in the survey itself; a mechanism

that allows the delivery of surveys to users (e.g. email; Qualtrics); and

again, a team to compile and analyze the results.

How is it done?

1. Develop a research plan to get at what your goals are in this phase

of product discovery, a set of questions that can provide direction for

addressing those goals, and a list of behavioral criteria for selecting

users on the site or application to receive this survey.

2. Determine how to build the survey and deploy it to users currently

using your product; depending on the complexity of the survey, you

may need additional help from other teams.

3. Once the survey has been delivered and enough responses have been

received (ideally around one hundred or so), sit down as a team, look

at the distribution of answers, and uncover areas for improvement or

interesting bits of feedback from your users.

Objective

Participants: 100+ Effort: Low Time: Hours

CC Image courtesy of plings_005 on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

On-the-Street SurveysHit the streets as a team and ask passers-by to take a moment out of their day to fill out a short survey.

When a team is wrestling with questions around general consumer behavior, on-the-street surveys present a quick opportunity to partly

validate those assumptions with real people through a short questionnaire.

While some teams may already have detailed user research about their existing customers, on-the-street surveys can offer easy progress for

those struggling with understanding whether their assumptions about their product or user are even remotely correct. These types of surveys should

produce a few qualitative insights and quotes, acting as a compass for how to further validate the team’s assumptions about the customer.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Who is involved?

On-the-street surveys require a suitable location for doing on-the-street

surveys (parks, malls, and other places of leisure are good spots, while

transportation hubs or areas with high activity are unsuitable); and a

team to get out of the building, engage with the general population, and

discuss survey responses and interesting quotes from participants.

How is it done?

1. Create a short survey, taking a maximum of five minutes to administer,

with a healthy mix of demographic (age, employment, commute, etc.)

and open-ended questions (how and why, rather than yes and no).

2. Get out of the building! Keep in mind: many people may decline your

request to take the survey, so do not feel discouraged if this happens

often. The team should aim at around ten or so survey responses.

3. After the surveys have been completed, sit down as a team and

review the responses to pick out compelling quotes and decide which

assumptions have been partly validated or invalidated.

Objective

Participants: 10+ Effort: Medium Time: Hours

CC Image courtesy of rjt on Flickr

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Moderated Usability StudyPose tasks and questions to your users to see how successfully

they can interact with your product or prototype.

A usability study focuses on a user’s ability to achieve a goal or complete a task while using a product or prototype, and gives a sense of whether a

user will find the provided functionality helpful or attractive.

These studies generally fall into two categories—remote or lab—depending on whether the study participant and moderator are performing tasks and receiving feedback in the same location (like an in-house facility) or separately (via web interface or phone). This method should produce recorded notes, audio, or video that the team can later analyze for

opportunities to improve the existing experience.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Who is involved?

Moderated usability studies require a recruiter to find participants that are

willing to be interviewed while using the product either in-person and in the

building or through webcam; a moderator during the usability test, to issue

instructions and follow-up questions; a note-taker or video recorder to jot

down interesting remarks or observations; and a team to synthesize the

results and determine next steps.

How is it done?

1. Create a testing script for instructions that the moderator will follow

during the session, including tasks for the participant to complete or

questions to answer. Don’t be too detailed, however; moderators can

course-correct when needed during the session.

2. Ensure that the product or prototype is fully accessible to the

participant, either via an in-house device or through a network outside

the building.

3. Recruit participants who are either willing to come in-house and sit

with the moderator, or have the necessary equipment to receive and

record audio and visual remotely.

4. During the sessions, have the moderator run through the test script,

but also deviate when interesting remarks or observations have been

made; have the note-taker listen into the session, or record for later

usage.

5. Sit down as a team when all participants have been interviewed,

and synthesize results to see whether the product or prototype was

successfully usable.

Objective

Participants: 10+ Effort: High Time: Days


UNDERSTAND THE USER

Unmoderated Usability StudyRecord users interacting with your product or

prototype through webcam or screen recording to see how well they can perform tasks.

A usability study focuses on a user’s ability to achieve a goal or complete a task while using a product or prototype, and gives a sense of whether a user

will find the provided functionality helpful or attractive.

Unmoderated studies are generally remote and unavailable to the team until the participant has completed the series of tasks requested by the team; because of a higher margin for error, this kind of study should be limited in scope, focusing on a few specific features. This method should produce recorded audio or video of the participant’s screen and voice, which the team

can later analyze for opportunities to improve the existing experience.

UNDERSTAND THE USER

Who is involved?

Unmoderated usability studies require a third-party provider who will

both recruit suitable candidates who are in their participant pool and

who are capable of communicating without a moderator, as well as

deliver and record the session for use afterward; and a team who will

take the recorded audio or video and synthesize results to uncover new

insights and decide next steps.

How is it done?

1. Create a testing script for instructions that the participants will follow

by themselves during the session, including tasks for the participant

to complete or questions to answer. Be as detailed as possible, due

to the lack of moderator.


participant through a network outside the building.

3. Administer the usability tests through the third-party provider, who

will be recruiting and delivering the instructions/questions to them

remotely.

4. Sit down as a team when all participants have been recorded, and

synthesize results to see whether the product or prototype was

successfully usable.Objective



UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM

Problem HypothesesDetermine and state your most important

assumptions about the user problem.

Your vision for a product opportunity is a series of untested hypotheses that need to be proven. Before you can test what you think you know, you need to write it down — it starts with stating the assumptions your team is making about the problem. What problem or need are you solving for the business, product, or user? Why do you think the problem exists? What do you think are your customers’ biggest pains?

Once you have determined your most important assumptions about the user problem, you will be able to validate whether or not they are true

by talking to your customers.


Instructions

1. On a flip-chart sheet of paper or whiteboard, write down the

problem or user need you are trying to solve.

2. Each participant should have a pad of sticky notes. Ask the

participants to think about any assumptions they currently have

about why this problem exists from the user’s perspective.

3. Take 5 minutes to have participants silently write down all their

assumptions, one assumption per sticky note.

4. After everyone has written their assumptions, put everyone’s sticky

notes under the problem statement you wrote at the beginning of

the session.

5. Once all the sticky notes have been posted, start grouping similar

items into clusters.

6. For each cluster, write a statement or category that captures its

theme on a new sticky note. These represent the team’s problem

hypotheses.

7. Have the group determine which hypotheses are the most important.

This will serve as a starting point to get out of the building and talk

to customers in order to validate which (if any) of them are true.

The Startup Owner’s Manual, by Steve Blankhttp://leanstack.com/customer-development-checklist-for-my-web-startup-part-1/

Participants: Entire team Time: 45–60 minutes

Objective


5 W’sAnswer the key questions of who, what, where, when, and why to understand the context of the

problem you’re trying to solve.

This game helps the team understand the context of a problem more deeply by answering the fundamental questions about the problem: who, what, where, when, and why. Employees often come to meetings with widely different levels of knowledge around a problem. No one knows the information better than the team members themselves, so this gives everyone a chance to externalize and share what’s in their minds. It also allows players to unearth questions they have about the problem. This game sheds some light on a problem, project, or initiative so that team members have a shared knowledge of the problem they

are trying to solve, with fewer lingering questions.


Instructions

1. In a large white space visible to all the players, write the problem

and the following words as headers across the top: WHO (are we

solving it for)?, WHAT (is the problem we are trying to solve)?,

WHERE (is it happening)?, WHEN (is it happening)?, and WHY (is

it important to solve it)?.

2. Tell the players that the goal of the game is to understand any and

all questions around the problem. Give all players access to sticky

notes and markers.

3. Start with the question WHO?. Give the players 5 minutes to silently

write down as many items or questions as they can that begin with

the word WHO.

4. Ask the players to post their sticky notes in the white space under

WHO?, then ask a couple of volunteers to cluster them according

to topical similarity.

5. Repeat this process for the remaining four header questions.

6. You may want to write emergent themes near each cluster. This

is also helpful for the players to reinforce that they have shared

concerns. The themes should be one- to three-word phrases that

summarize the general content of the clusters.

7. When the meeting closes, gather all of the questions so that

leadership has the opportunity to review them later and respond

to important questions that weren’t covered during the meeting.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-any-meeting/help-me-understand/


Objective


Draw the ProblemDo quick drawings to define the problem in a

simple, clear, and compelling way.

Problems that are vague or misunderstood have a harder time getting prioritized and therefore go unaddressed and unsolved. Meetings that address problem-solving often skip this critical step: defining the problem in a way that is not only clear but also compelling enough to

make people care about solving it.

This short drawing exercise at the beginning of a meeting will help participants engage in defining the challenge in a simplified form. This is a first step in bringing your group together under a common purpose

and elevate the problem to become something you care to solve.


Instructions

1. Each participant should have a large index card or letter-sized

piece of paper. After introducing the topic of the meeting, ask the

participants to think about the problem they are here to solve. As

they do so, ask them to write a list of items helping to explain the

problem. For example, they may think about a “day in the life” of

the problem or an item that represents the problem as a whole.

2. After a few minutes of this thinking and reflection, ask the

participants to flip over their paper and draw a picture of the

problem, as they would explain it to a peer. They may draw a simple

diagram or something more metaphorical; there are no prizes or

punishments for good or bad artistry. The drawing should simply

assist in explaining the problem.

3. When everyone is finished, have the participants post their

drawings on the wall and explain them to each other. While the

group shares, note any common elements. After the exercise, the

group should reflect on the similarities and differences, and work

toward a shared understanding of what the problem looks like to

each other.

This warm-up does not result in a problem definition that will satisfy a

product backlog; rather, it engages participants in defining the challenge

in a simplified form. It is a first step in bringing a group together under

a common purpose, elevating the problem above the noise to become

something they care to solve.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/draw-the-problem/


Objective

CC Image courtesy of Mike Rohde on Flickr


FishbowlFocus on listening to have a more meaningful

conversation—one group discusses the problem, while the other group listens and observes.

At meetings, there are often stakeholders who aren’t familiar with others’ perspectives or aren’t accustomed to listening to each other without offering an immediate response. In these scenarios, it can be

difficult for people to engage in a rich and meaningful conversation.

This exercise helps activate attention and engage skills that have become rusty for many: listening, observing, and being accountable for our observations. It primes your listening and observing skills so a more substantive conversation can take place. It may look like the action is happening with the speaking participants, but it is actually happening

with the observers.


Instructions

1. Before the meeting, think of a topic that could be served by a group discussion and write down questions associated with it. Create a handout for the observers to record the major points they hear from the speaking players and any evidence they hear that supports each point.

2. Find a room with a good amount of open space and clear out anything other than chairs. Arrange the chairs in two concentric circles—the inner circle seats the players engaged in conversation; the outer circle seats the players acting as observers.

3. Introduce the game to the group and make it clear that this is a listening and observing exercise. Assign “observer” or “player” status to each person. Give everyone a pen and handout, which will only be used in the observer role. Ask the participants to sit in the circle for their assigned role.

4. Announce the topic and have the speaking players discuss it for 15 minutes. Use the questions you generated before the meeting to guide the conversation. Make sure the speakers know that their responsibility is simply to converse. Make sure the observers know that their role is to pay attention and write down all discussion points and evidence that come out of the conversation.

5. When 15 minutes are up, ask the group to switch seats and switch roles. Then start another 15-minute discussion on the same topic or a different one.

6. After both conversations have completed, ask for volunteers to share the information they gathered and to describe their experiences on the inner versus outer circle.

7. Optional: Have the group talk about their experience of being silent and paying attention. What was difficult about it? What was easy? How did it affect their perception of the topic and the other players? Use the Fishbowl exercise as a segue to a heightened give-and-take between stakeholders.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-opening/fishbowl/


Objective

CC Image courtesy of Travis Isaacs on Flickr


The Five WhysDiscover the root cause of a problem by drilling down

below the surface to relate it to its context.

Problems are tackled more sustainably when they’re addressed at the source.

This exercise helps to relate a problem to its context so your group can see the bigger picture. The goal is to move beyond the surface of the problem and discover the root cause. By reading more between the lines, you will gain meaningful insights into the source of a problem and

get the greatest leverage out of solving it.


Instructions

1. Before the meeting, choose a problem your team needs to evaluate. Write the problem in an area visible to all the group members. Try to draw something to represent it.

2. Distribute sticky notes to each player and ask them to number five of them 1 through 5.

3. Ask the players to review the problem statement and ask themselves WHY it’s a problem. Encourage them to be honest and to write the first thing that comes to mind each time they ask “Why?”. If they jump immediately to the perceived root of the problem, they may miss the opportunity to see the stages.

4. Have the players write their first response on sticky note 1.

5. Tell the players to ask themselves WHY the answer on sticky note 1 is true and write their next response on sticky note 2.

6. Next, tell the players to ask WHY the answer on sticky note 2 is true and write the response on sticky note 3.

7. Repeat this until every numbered sticky note has a response on it.

8. Below the problem statement, write the word “Why?” five times in a column; draw lines to create columns for each player’s set of notes. Ask the players to post their responses on the wall, starting with 1 at the top and ending with 5 at the bottom.

9. Review the “Why” columns with the group and note commonalities and differences.

10. Allow for discussion.

11. Rewrite the problem statement on a sheet of flip-chart paper. Work with the group to build consensus on which of the five “Whys” offer the most meaningful insight into the problem. Ask a volunteer to rewrite the “Whys”—one per sticky note—as the group agrees on them. Put the stickies in a final column under the problem statement. If you have time, discuss “what’s next.”

12. Note: Five Whys is a good start, but many problems require more or less interrogation to get to the root. Ask “Why?” until you feel the group is getting somewhere. Build longer WHY columns if necessary, and keep going until the players get to meaningful insights.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-problem-solving/the-5-whys/

Participants: 5-10 Time: 1+ hours

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Luke and Kate Bosman on Flickr


Challenge CardsIdentify and think through challenges, problems, and

potential pitfalls in a product, service, or strategy, then match them with solutions.

The goal of this exercise is to improve a product or strategy by thinking through various scenarios and alternatives. By brainstorming features and strengths of the product or solution, along with potential problems or challenges, teams match up challenges with solutions to tell a

collaborative story.


Instructions

1. Divide each group into two teams:

• The “solution team” silently brainstorms features and strengths of

the product or solution.

• The “challenge team” silently brainstorms potential problems

or challenges and writes them on index cards, one problem or

challenge per card.

2. When play commences, the two teams work together to tell a

collaborative story:

• The challenge team picks a card from the deck and plays it on

the table, describing a scene or event where the issue might

realistically arise.

• The solution team must then pick a card from their deck that

addresses the challenge.

3. If the solution team has a solution, they get a point, and if they don’t,

the challenge team gets a point.

4. The teams then work together to design a card that addresses that

challenge.

5. Play continues in this fashion, challenge followed by solution

followed by challenge, and so on, until the story or scenario reaches

a conclusion.

6. Optional: By turning the exercise into a competition as well as a

storytelling game, players are more likely to get engaged and

immerse themselves in the scenarios. Keeping it lighthearted and

fun will increase the energy. It shouldn’t feel like work.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/challenge-cards/

Participants: 4-10 Time: 30 min-1hour

Objective

By tableatny via Wikimedia Commons (originally posted to Flickr as BXP135677)


Poster SessionCommunicate ideas and core concepts using images in a poster format to summarize a challenge or larger topic for

further discussion.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what would 50 pictures be worth? What if 50 people could present their most passionate ideas to

each other—without any long-winded explanation?

This exercise accelerates the presentation process by breaking it down into a simplified format. It forces everyone to think about the best way to compile and communicate their ideas. The goal is to create a set of compelling images that summarize a challenge or topic for further discussion. Creating this set might be an “opening act” that sets the stage for choosing an idea to pursue, or it might be a way to index ideas

for a large topic.


Instructions

1. Everyone will need ample supplies for creating their poster. Flip charts and markers are sufficient, but consider bringing other school supplies, such as stickers, magazines for cutting up, and physical objects.

2. Start by framing the challenge. In any given large group, you could say: “There are more good ideas in everyone’s heads than there is time to understand and address them. By creating posters that explain the ideas, we’ll have a better idea of what’s out there and what we might work on.”

3. The participants’ task is to create a poster that explains their topic. There are two constraints:

1) It must be self-explanatory. Could someone understand it without having you explain it?

2) It must be visual. Words are good, but text alone will not be enough to get people’s attention or help them understand. Participants may be helped by thinking about three kinds of explanation:

• Before and After: Describe “why” someone should care in terms of the today and tomorrow of the idea.

• System: Describe the “what” of an idea in terms of its parts and their relationships.

• Process: Describe the “how” of an idea in terms of a sequence of events.

4. Give participants 20 minutes to create their posters. When they have finished, post them on the wall to create a “gallery.” Ask the group to circulate and walk the gallery. Some posters will attract and capture more attention than others. From here, it may be worthwhile to have participants dot vote (see Dot Voting) to decide what ideas to pursue further.

Optional: The posters may be created in small groups. In this case, it’s important for the group to decide ahead of time what their topic will be and to give more time to come to a consensus on what they will draw and how they will draw it. A small group of experts may create posters to explain their different points of view at the start of a meeting, and to make their models of the world, their vocabulary, and their interests clear and explicit.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-any-meeting/poster-session/

Participants: 10-100 Time: 20 minutes

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Swedish Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010 on Flickr


SWOT AnalysisEvaluate your team’s likelihood of success relative to an objective by examining strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, dangers, and

conditions that may affect your future.

In business, it can be easier to have certainty around what you want, but more difficult to understand what’s impeding you from getting it. The SWOT Analysis is a long-standing technique of looking at what’s working well for the business and what could be improved upon, with

respect to a desired end state.

This exercise provides the group with the opportunity to gauge approaching opportunities and dangers, and assess the seriousness of the conditions that affect the future. By understanding those conditions,

the group can influence what comes next.


Instructions

1. Before the meeting, write “Desired End State” and draw a picture of what it might look like on a piece of flip-chart paper.

2. Create a 4-square quadrant using 4 sheets of flip-chart paper. Create more quadrants if you think the complexity of the discussion and the number of players warrant it.

3. Top left quadrant: Write the word “STRENGTHS” and draw a picture depicting that concept. Players should take 5–10 minutes to quietly generate ideas about strengths with respect to the desired end state and write one idea per sticky note.

4. Bottom left quadrant: Write “WEAKNESSES” and draw a picture depicting it. Take 5–10 minutes to write ideas about weaknesses.

5. Top right quadrant: Write “OPPORTUNITIES” and draw a picture. Take 5–10 minutes to write ideas about opportunities.

6. Bottom right quadrant: Write “THREATS” and draw a picture. Take 5–10 minutes to write ideas about perceived threats.

7. Post everyone’s sticky notes near the corresponding quadrants.

8. Starting with STRENGTHS, sort the ideas based on their affinity to each other and cluster them together until you have clustered the majority of them. Place outliers separate from the clusters but still in playing range. Repeat this for the other categories in this order: WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES, and THREATS.

9. After the clustering is complete, have the group create a broad category for each smaller cluster. Write the categories in the quadrants as the group agrees on them.

10. Have the players dot vote on 2-3 categories in each square for the items they believe are most relevant. Highlight the ones with the most votes.

11. As a group, discuss implications around the desired end state. Evaluate weaknesses and threats positively, like their presence is doing a favor. Ask questions, like “What if our competition didn’t exist?” and “How can this threat make the organization stronger?”

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-fresh-thinking-and-ideas/swot-analysis/http://www.innovationgames.com/swot-analysis-game/

Participants: 5-20 Time: 1-2 hours

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Ahmed Hashim on Flickr


Post the PathDefine your group’s existing process at a high

level and get a better understanding of the current process.

Often, there is a sense of confusion about who does what and when. The team is using different terms to describe their process; there is no documented process; things seem to happen arbitrarily, invisibly, or by

chance.

This exercise helps to quickly diagnose your group’s level of understanding of the steps in a process. The group will define an existing process at a high level and uncover areas of confusion or misunderstanding. In most cases, this can flow naturally into a discussion of what to do about those unclear areas. This will not generally result in a new or better

process, but rather a better understanding of the current one.


Instructions

Introduce the exercise by framing the objective: “This is a group activity, where we will create a picture of how we create [x].” X in this case is the output of the process; it may be a document, a product, an agreement, or the like. Write or draw the output of the process on the wall.

Establish a common starting point of the process with the group. This could sound like “the beginning of the day” or “the start of a quarter” or “after we finished the last one.” This is the trigger or triggers that kick off the process. If you believe the group will have a hard time with this simple step, decide it for them in advance and present it as a best guess. Write this step on a sticky note, put it on the wall, and then proceed with the exercise.

1. Instruct participants to think about the process from beginning to end. Then give them the task: write down the steps in the process. They can use as many notes as they like, but each step must be a separate note.

2. After the participants have brainstormed their version of the steps, ask them to come up to the wall and post them to compare. The group should place their steps above and below one another’s so that they can compare their versions of steps 1, 2, and so on.

3. Prompt the group to find points of agreement and confusion. Look for terminology problems, where participants may be using different words to describe the same step. Points of confusion may surface where “something magical happens” or no one is really clear on a step.

4. The group will draw their own conclusions about what the different versions of the process mean and what they can or should do about it. For a larger group, you may want to avoid individual readouts and instead have people post up simultaneously. If you sense in advance that the group will get caught up in the details, ask them to produce a limited number of steps — try 10.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/post-the-path/

Participants: 2-10 Time: 30 min-1 hour

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Roo Reynolds on Flickr


Value Proposition CanvasMap, think though, and discuss your value propositions

and how they match your customers’ needs.

This thinking and design tool helps you design Value Propositions that match your customers’ needs and aids them in solving their problems. The Value Proposition Canvas guides you towards the problem-solution fit in a more structured, thoughtful way. It captures core issues around

customer problems and potential solutions.

The Value Proposition Canvas is based on two blocks from the Business Model Canvas: the Value Proposition and the Customer Segment. This exercise sketches out both in more detail with a simple but powerful structure, which will allow for better strategic conversations and prepare

you for testing both building blocks.


Instructions

1. Before starting the canvas, sketch a profile of your target customers. First, determine what they are trying to accomplish. This could be tasks they are trying to perform and complete, problems they are trying to solve, or needs they are trying to satisfy. Next, describe any negative emotions, costs, and risks that they might experience before, during, and after getting the job done. Then describe the benefits they expect, desire, or would be surprised by, which include utility, social gains, positive emotions, and cost savings.

2. Once the team has completed the customer profile, begin creating the Value Proposition Canvas. Divide a flip-chart sheet of paper into three sections: Products & Services, Gain Creators, and Pain Relievers.

See an example of the template: http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/downloads/value_proposition_canvas.pdf

3. In the Products & Services section: List all the products and services your value proposition is built around. Which products and services do you offer that help your customer get either a functional, social, or emotional job done, or help him/her satisfy basic needs? Rank all products and services according to their importance to your customer—are they crucial or trivial?

4. In the Gain Creators section: Describe how your products and services create customer gains. How do they create benefits your customer expects, desires or would be surprised by, including functional utility, social gains, positive emotions, and cost savings?

5. In the Pain Relievers section: Describe how your products and services alleviate customer pains. How do they eliminate or reduce negative emotions, undesired costs and situations, and risks your customer experiences or could experience before, during, and after getting the job done?

6. You can use the Value Proposition Canvas like the Business Model Canvas: plot it as a poster, post it up on the wall, then use sticky notes to start sketching.

Strategyzer.com, Strategyzer AGhttp://businessmodelalchemist.com/blog/2012/08/achieve-product-market-fit-with-our-brand-new-value-

proposition-designer.htmlhttp://businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas/vpc?_ga=1.216540690.564012849.1430337420


Objective

CC Image courtesy of Epicantus on Flickr

CONFIRM THE PROBLEM

Tree TestingFind gaps between your product’s current

navigation and what your users actually expect.

Tree testing is used to determine how users find items within an existing navigational structure, when given a particular task or series of tasks

to complete.

The test usually involves grouping items based on hierarchy and naming alone — often with each item on index cards or paper rather than via a digital medium — so that findability can be judged without interference from other factors like visual design. Teams can leverage the results from this technique to decide whether parts or the entirety of a chosen navigation can successfully accommodate the kinds of user activities

the product is expected to support.

CONFIRM THE PROBLEM

Who is involved?

Tree testing requires a recruiter to find existing users who exhibit the type

of behaviors that would involve navigating through the current product;

a moderator to give instructions, ask the participant to do a sample task,

and organize the index cards with navigational options on them as the

participant answers; and a team to analyze and validate (or invalidate)

the findability of important options within the current structure.

How is it done?

1. Recruit current users who are most likely familiar with the type of

sample tasks you’ll be asking them to complete during the tree testing.

2. Create a series of index cards with the names of current or proposed

navigational options on them, to show to the participant during the

test.

3. During the session, have the moderator present a sample task (such

as, “Find an article involving Syria”) and lay out the cards with the

first-level navigation options on them (e.g. “World”, “U.S.”, and “New

York”). As the participant moves through navigational levels, more

cards are added onto the table until the participant is confident they

are at the page where they can complete the task. Keep in mind:

participants are allowed to backtrack through the levels.

4. After each participant’s navigational tree has been recorded, sit down

as a team to analyze where frustrations and navigational pain points

are most evident and plan your next steps.

Objective


CC Image courtesy of Seongbin Im on Flickr

CONFIRM THE PROBLEM

Stakeholder InterviewsReach out to stakeholders to uncover the varied business

needs and motivations involving your product.

Interviewing project stakeholders is an invaluable resource for uncovering the goals, needs, and frustrations of those external to the core team but who

have a vested interest in the outcome of the product discovery process.

Perform these interviews to both understand the breadth of requirements and activities behind the efforts to improve your product, as well as assess the current organizational knowledge of user needs and problems. This overview should result in materials describing, at a high-level, the user, business, and organizational problems currently experienced by stakeholders, as well as

their plans or hopes for improving the team’s product.

CONFIRM THE PROBLEM

Who is involved?

Stakeholder interviews require a product team capable of identifying and

recruiting stakeholders internally, moderating and note-taking during the

interview, and combing through the responses to understand the wider

range of business needs and goals involving your product.

How is it done?

1. Create an interview guide listing the general or department-specific

questions you’d like to pose to individual stakeholders.

2. Recruit based on willingness to chat with the product team, and be

sure to schedule as much in advance as possible, given that your

stakeholders are most likely very busy.

3. During the one-on-one interviews, spend some time at the beginning

briefly introducing the purpose of the interviews and what sorts of

questions you’ll be asking; they should last 30 minutes to an hour.

The team moderator should feel free to deviate from the guide

whenever an interesting topic has been broached.

4. Sit down as a team and uncover key insights, powerful quotes, and

stakeholder needs from your notes; these will inform how your team

understands the product within the larger organizational goals.

Objective


CC Image courtesy of mobology on Flickr

CONFIRM THE PROBLEM

Go/No-Go DecisionDiscuss and decide whether the problem is a valid one to

pursue further.

Now the team has reached a critical point—deciding whether to proceed with pursuing the problem. Everything the team has done until now will feed into this decision. In the Go/No-Go Decision, the team evaluates all the available evidence to determine the fate of the problem, in its current

incarnation.

CONFIRM THE PROBLEM

Instructions

After having done the necessary work to understand if your solution is

usable and valuable, the team is faced with one of two outcomes:

1. You’ve validated the solution(s) with your customers. If this is the

case, it is ready to be added to the product backlog.

2. You’ve concluded that one or more of the solutions you’ve tested

does not resonate with users. If this is the case, the team must

decide to either pivot and test new solution ideas, or move on to a

new opportunity altogether.

Objective


IDENTIFY POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

Mind MappingTake your ideas, mix them with notes you’ve taken, and loosely

organize them on paper.

Now you’re going to add all the other ideas that are in your head, mix them with the notes you just took, and loosely organize them on paper. The mind map is going to be your “cheat sheet” you can use when

you’re sketching UI ideas.


Instructions

1. This will entail quiet individual brainstorming. Each person writes

down everything in their head with no specific formatting.

2. You can write words and connect them, or not. You can draw

pictures, or not. You basically can’t do it wrong.

3. The important thing is that everyone is getting every solution, old

and new, out of their head and onto paper at very low fidelity.

Google Ventures: http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-divergeday2


Objective

CC Image courtesy of Balanced Team on Flickr


Post-UpGenerate ideas individually about a given topic on sticky notes,

then quickly present them to the group.

This exercise is used to generate many ideas from the group with silent sticky note writing. It is intended to be an opening activity, and a first

step to help guide next steps for your group.

From here you can move on to another gamestorming exercise. For example, the group may want to create an Affinity Map or further

organize and prioritize everyone’s thoughts using Forced Ranking.


Instructions

There are many ways to work with ideas using sticky notes. Generating

ideas is the most basic play, and it starts with a question that your group

will be brainstorming answers to. For example: “What are possible uses

for Product X?” Write the question or topic on a whiteboard. Ask the

group to brainstorm answers individually, silently writing their ideas on

separate sticky notes. The silence lets people think without interruption,

and putting items on separate notes ensures that they can later be

shuffled and sorted as distinct thoughts. After a set amount of time, ask

the members of the group to stick their notes to the whiteboard and

quickly present them. If anyone’s items inspire others to write more,

they can stick those up on the wall too, after everyone has presented.

Harry Brignall at the 90% of Everything blog makes a great suggestion:

“When doing a post-up activity with sticky notes in a workshop, you

may want to use the FOG method: mark each note with F (fact), O

(opinion) or G (guess). It’s such a simple thing to do, but it adds a

great deal of clarity to the decision-making process.”

http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/post-up/

Participants: 1-50 Time: 10 minutes–1 hour

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Robert van Geenhuizen on Flickr


6-8-5 SketchingCreate 6 to 8 sketches in 5 minutes to get down initial ideas,

generate many ideas, and iterate on the best ones.

One reason we end up with under-developed ideas is that we stick with our first good idea, rather than taking time to explore other approaches.

In this exercise, participants quickly generate many ideas without worrying about details. This can be used for any concept that you want to brainstorm early in the ideation process, and has the best results with a diverse group (including product, marketing, engineering, design, etc.). It can be repeated to hone a few of the best ideas, and is often followed by a debrief session or another gamestorming exercise

to focus on the most fruitful ideas.


Instructions

1. Prepare several sheets of paper with a 2×2 or 2×3 grid. You want to create boxes big enough for players to sketch their ideas in, but small enough to constrain them to one idea per box. Prepare enough paper for everyone to have about 10 boxes per round.

2. As the group is gathering, distribute sheets of paper to each player. Or instruct the group on how to make their own 2×2 grid by drawing lines in their notebook.

3. Introduce the game and remind players of the objective for the meeting. Tell players that the goal with 6-8-5 is to generate between 6-8 ideas (related to the meeting objective) in 5 minutes.

4. Next, set a timer for 5 minutes.

5. Tell the players to sit silently and sketch out as many ideas as they can until the timer ends — with the goal of reaching 6-8 ideas. The sketches can and should be very rough — nothing polished in this stage.

6. When the time runs out, the players should share their sketches with the rest of the group. The group can ask questions of each player, but this is not a time for a larger brainstorming session. Make sure every player presents his/her sketches.

7. With time permitting, repeat another few rounds of 6-8-5. Players can further develop any ideas that were presented by the group as a whole or can sketch new ideas that emerged since the last round. They can to work on separate ideas, or begin working on the same idea. But the 5-minute sketching sprint should always be done silently and independently.

6-8-5 is intended to help players generate many ideas in succession, without worrying about the details or implementation of any particular idea. It’s designed to keep players on task by limiting them to sketch in small boxes and work fast in a limited amount of time. 6-8-5 can be used on any product or concept that you want to brainstorm, and it has the best results when done with a heterogenous group (people from product, marketing, engineering, design, etc.).

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-fresh-thinking-and-ideas/6-8-5s/

Participants: 2+ Time: 30 minutes–1 hour

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Juhan Sonin on Flickr


BrainwritingGenerate multiple ideas individually, share them with each other,

and then build on them together.

Some of the best ideas are compilations from multiple contributors. Brainwriting is a simple way to generate ideas, share them, and subsequently build on them within a group. Access to multiple hands,

eyes, and minds can yield the most interesting results.

This exercise is intentionally silent, which gives quieter participants the opportunity to generate ideas without having to verbalize to everyone, and it guarantees input from every participant in the room. Brainwriting allows ideas to emerge before being critiqued and creates a space for them to be co-created, with multiple owners, and therefore a greater

chance of follow-through.


Instructions

1. In a space visible to the players, write the topic around which you need to generate ideas and draw a picture of it. An example of a topic might be “Employee Recognition Program.”

2. Distribute index cards to each player and ask them to silently generate ideas related to the topic and write them on the cards.

3. As they complete each idea, ask the players to pass that idea to the person on their right.

4. Tell the players to read the card they received and think of it as an “idea stimulation” card. Ask them to add an idea inspired by what they just read or to enhance the idea and then pass again to their right.

5. Continue this process of “brainwriting” and passing cards to the right until there are various ideas on each card.

Optional activity: Ask the players to write an idea on a piece of paper and then fold it into an airplane and fly it to another participant. Continue writing and flying the planes until each piece of paper has several ideas. Conclude with steps 6 and 7.

6. Once finished, collect the cards and ask for help taping them to the wall around the topic and its picture.

7. Have the group come to the wall to review the ideas and draw stars next to the ones they find most compelling. Discuss.

Optional activity: Create an idea gallery in the room using flip-chart pads and stands. Ask players to write as many ideas on the sheet as they can and then wander around the room and add ideas to the other sheets. Continue this process until each sheet has a good number of ideas.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/brainwriting/


Objective


Start, Stop, ContinueExamine the current situation, goal, or product by brainstorming what you want to start doing, what should be stopped, and what

works well now.

This exercise examines three key aspects of your current situation: 1) What should you start doing? 2) What isn’t working that you should discontinue? 3) What’s working well now that you should continue doing?

Participants brainstorm individually, which frames the discussion with the larger group. This is useful for guiding “problem-solving” meetings

or for conceptualizing aspirational steps toward a vision.


Instructions

Ask the group to consider the current situation or goal and individually

brainstorm actions in these three categories:

Start: What are things that we need to START doing?

Stop: What are we currently doing that we can or should STOP?

Continue: What are we doing now that works and should CONTINUE?

Have individuals share their results.

Strategy

This exercise is broad enough to work well as an opening or closing

exercise. It’s useful in framing discussion at “problem-solving” meetings,

or as a way to brainstorm aspirational steps toward a vision.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-decision-making/start-stop-continue/

Participants: 1-10 Time: 10 minutes–1 hour

Objective

CC Image courtesy of ykanazawa1999 on Flickr


The Anti-ProblemWhen the team is running out of ideas for solutions for a

problem, get unstuck by identifying ways to solve the opposite problem.

When the team is already working on a problem, but running out of ideas for solutions, this exercise helps your group get unstuck. By asking everyone to identify ways to solve the problem opposite to the current one, it becomes easier to see where a current solution might be going

astray or where an obvious solution isn’t being applied.

Make the anti-problem more extreme than it really is—this better helps to break out of existing patterns. The intention is not to eliminate a complex problem or come up with a viable solution in 30 minutes; it is to give your

team a new approach that can lead to a solution after the session.


Instructions

1. Before the meeting, find a situation that needs to be resolved or a

problem that needs a solution.

2. Give players access to sticky notes, markers, index cards, pipe

cleaners, modeling clay—any supplies you have around the office

that they could use to design and describe solutions.

3. Break large groups into smaller groups of three to four people

and describe what they’ll tackle together: the anti-problem, or the

current problem’s opposite. (For example, if the problem is sales

conversion, the players would brainstorm ways to get customers

to avoid buying the product.) The more extreme the problem’s

opposite, the better.

Optional activity: Bring a list of smaller problems and decrease the

amount of time allotted to solve them. Make it a race to come up

with as many solutions as the group can churn out—even if they’re

outlandish.

4. Give the players 15–20 minutes to generate and display various

ways to solve the anti-problem. Encourage fast responses and a

volume of ideas. There are no wrong solutions.

5. When the time is up, ask each group to share their solutions to the

anti-problem. They should stand and display any visual creations

they have at this time or ask the others to gather around their table

to see their solutions.

6. Discuss any insights the players have gained or any discoveries

they have made.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-fresh-thinking-and-ideas/the-anti-problem/


Objective

CC Image courtesy of Cecilia Espinoza on Flickr


StoryboardingTake the ideas you’ve generated so far, and sketch how a user

would move through part of a user story.

After the team has done some mind-mapping and quickly sketched ideas, make that user story diagram more concrete. The goal is to take the ideas you’ve generated so far and sketch an actual UI showing how a user would move through this part of the story — where they click, what info they enter, what they think, etc. These storyboards will be shared

anonymously and critiqued by the group.


Instructions

1. Start with a blank sheet of paper, and put 3 sticky notes on it. Each

sticky note is one frame in the storyboard. It’s kind of like a comic

book that you’re going to fill in.

2. Look back at your mind map and your sketches to find the best

ideas, the ones you’d like to illustrate in more detail.

3. Draw UI in the three frames of their storyboard showing a

progression: first this, then that, then that.

4. There are three important storyboard rules:

Make it stand alone. Just like a real product, your drawing has to

make sense by itself, without you there to pitch it. In the next steps,

people will be looking at these, but you won’t have a chance to talk

about your idea until the end.

Keep it anonymous. Don’t write your name on your drawing.

You’ll want all ideas to start on a level playing field and it can be

distracting to know which one was drawn by the CEO.

Give it a name. Come up with a catchy title for your idea. That

makes it easier to discuss and compare later.

5. When you finish the storyboards, hang them on the wall.

6. Have the team silently critique or dot vote on the most interesting

concepts to move forward with.

Google Ventures, http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-divergeday2


Objective

CC Image courtesy of CannedTuna on Flickr


Elevator PitchUse madlibs to create a compelling elevator pitch for your

product, service, or idea.

Whether developing a service, a company-wide initiative, or just a good idea that merits spreading, a group will benefit from collaborating on what is—and isn’t—in the pitch. This is often the most difficult task in developing a new idea. The better and bigger the idea, the harder the

pitch is to write.

The elevator pitch must be unique, believable and important. It should be a short and compelling description of the problem, for whom you’re solving it, and the key benefit that distinguishes the solution from

competitors.


Instructions

To set up, write the following questions on flipcharts, one question per page: Who is the target customer? What is the customer need? What is the product name? What is its market category? What is its key benefit? Who or what is the competition? What is the product’s unique differentiator?

These are the elements of the pitch, following a formula: For (target customer) who has (customer need), (product name) is a (market category) that (one key benefit). Unlike (competition), the product (unique differentiator).

Then, explain the elements and their connections: The target customer and customer need are simple. Any relatively good idea or product will have many potential customers and address many needs. Fix the product name in advance—this will help contain the scope of the conversation. The market category should be an easily understood description of the type of idea or product. It may be like “training program” or “peer-to-peer community.” The key benefit is the single most compelling reason a target customer would buy into the idea. The competition and unique differentiator are final punctuation of the pitch. Who or what will the target customer compare this idea to, and why is it unique?

To play:

First, participants brainstorm ideas on sticky notes that fit under each of the headers, without discussion.

Next, the group may discuss areas where they have the most trouble. Dot voting or affinity mapping can help prioritize ideas. After this, in small groups, pairs, or as individuals, participants write out possible elevator pitches, based on the ideas on the flipcharts.

After a set amount of time (ex: 15 minutes) the groups reconvene and present their draft pitches. The group may choose to role play as target customers while listening, commenting or asking questions. The group may craft distinct pitches for different target customers.

The exercise is complete when there is a strong direction among the group on what the pitch should and should not contain.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/elevator-pitch/

Participants: 1-5 Time: 1.5+ hours

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Wayan Vota on Flickr


The VC PitchImagine you’re entrepreneurs pitching your idea to venture

capitalists—present your key selling points, how the idea can make money, and why people will buy it.

It’s easy to generate concepts where money, time and technical capacity are unlimited, or ideas that look good in theory, but are impractical in reality. This

exercise brings attention back to the real world.

You play the role of entrepreneurs who need to sell your idea to a group of venture capitalists (VCs) by focusing on feasibility and viability. What are the key selling points? How can this make money? Why will people buy it? This exercise captures the different perspectives that different groups have about a concept, product, service, or prototype, and also the type of language everyone uses to define it. The questions the VCs ask usually expose weak points or help clarify ideas, which can then be discussed by the larger group.


Instructions

1. Divide people into small groups, ideally pairs or triads. One group

should take the role the VCs, while the others are ‘entrepreneurs’.

2. A product or service is defined and agreed on by the group.

3. Individually, each group spends 10 minutes formulating their pitch

to be presented to the VCs. They can write, draw and rehearse:

the creation is really up to each group. Ideally they should be in

separate rooms or breakout spaces while creating the pitches.

4. All groups should be aware that one or two representatives will

present the pitch verbally to the VCs but the whole group will

answer their questions. It is also important to cap preparation time

(around 10 minutes is good), since over-elaborating an idea can

take away the true nature of their thoughts.

5. Towards the end of the preparation time, the VCs give groups a

time-warning: ‘You have 2 minutes prep remaining’.

6. Each group then presents their pitch – a time limit (3 minutes)

is given for each presentation and the VCs can ask up to two

questions each.

7. It’s not essential, but to add a sense of competition, the VCs can

decide which pitch is the winner at the end.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/the-pitch/


Objective

CC Image courtesy of Fresh Tilled Soil on Flickr


Participatory DesignBring your customers into the building to collaboratively

build their perfect product with the team.

Participatory design is a collaborative way to bring stakeholders and potential users into the design process, giving them a chance to share their ideas with the team through solution-building activities rather than

verbal communication alone.

Using physical materials — pen, paper, tape, etc. — and active discussion, the team partners with real users, learns about their needs and wants, and identifies possible solutions to prototype and validate in future milestones. Participatory design results in not only rich understanding of the target user, but also in powerful artifacts and narratives to inspire

the team in later stages.


Who is involved?

Participatory design requires a recruiter to source either target users

or stakeholders that share an interest in influencing your product; a

moderator to guide the participants through the design exercises; and

the team to decide on research goals, plan the exercises, and document

findings to identify possible directions for your solution.

How is it done?

1. Frame the goals, objectives, and questions for the design exercise.

What are you trying to achieve by letting them design their perfect

experience? What should we ask participants to design?

2. Recruit participants who are open to sharing their perspectives

through creative exercises in-house.

3. On the day of the sessions (participatory design should be one-on-

one with recruits), invite each participant into a large room with

enough space to be creative, and enough materials to fully express

their ideas for your product. Sessions may last an hour or so.

4. Afterwards, take the numerous photos, designs, and quotes from

the sessions, lay them out for the team to analyze, and use them as

sources of inspiration for the solution ideation phase.

Objective


CC Image courtesy of Robert van Geenhuizen on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Silent/3-Min CritiqueConverge on the most promising storyboards using an individual

critique followed by voting.

After creating storyboards of user stories, which show how a user would move through part of the story, you’ll discuss and evaluate them. The critiques will also provide an opportunity to ask questions you may have

about any of the storyboards.

Determining which storyboards (or parts of storyboards) everyone liked best will help the team decide where to focus and which pieces will go

into the prototype.

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

1. For the Silent Critique, participants are given a bunch of dot stickers. Everyone silently looks at the storyboards and puts a sticker on every idea or part of an idea they like. There are no limits to how many stickers you can use, and you can vote for your own ideas. By the end, you’ve got a heat map of ideas.

2. For the Three-Minute Critiques, everybody gathers around the storyboards one at a time. First, people talk about what they liked, then we ask the person who drew it if we missed anything important. Usually the best ideas are the ones people can understand without an explanation. This process works far better than letting people explain their ideas first — which almost always uses up a lot of time.

• You might opt to do the three-minute critiques on a projector, especially if there are a lot of ideas to get through. Take photos of each storyboard, upload them to a shared drive, put them in an editable file, then make notes about parts we like with outlines and text labels as you go through. This is easier for everyone to see, and you have a digital artifact of the ideas. Count on 15 extra minutes to capture and upload photos.

3. Super Vote: Once you’ve looked at all the ideas, everybody gets a few “special” stickers (which can be the same dot stickers with a pen mark on them). These are “super votes” for the ideas you think are the best. Between the original and super votes, it’s easy to see the strongest concepts.

The super votes can reflect the decision-making structure of your team or company. Does your CEO make all final product decisions? If that’s the case, be honest, and give her three super votes and everybody else one. The simple rule is to give the deciders extra votes.

By default, this process will be a meritocracy, but that’s not always the way companies work and consensus can lead to poor design decisions. The last thing you want are decisions that the deciders don’t truly support. Don’t be surprised if it feels a bit awkward to bring this up.

Google Ventures, http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-divergeday2

Objective

Participants: 1+ Time: 5-10 minutes

CC Image courtesy of Balanced Team on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Identify ConflictsComb through your storyboards and look for conflicts—where

there are two or more different approaches to solving the same problem.

Comb through everyone’s storyboards from your storyboarding session (refer to storyboarding exercise), and look for conflicts. A conflict is a place where there are two or more different approaches to solving the same problem. Conflicting approaches are super helpful because they

illuminate the choices for your product.

Each conflict is like a little gold mine. In business-as-usual design, designers often end up picking one approach and going straight to high

resolution.

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

1. Post everyone’s storyboards up on the wall, side-by-side.

2. Every time you find a conflict, write it down.

3. Put the topic and solutions on sticky notes.

4. Map out your decision points, and you may even want to explore a

few conflicting ideas in parallel instead of immediately committing

to a safe choice.

Google Ventures, http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-decideday3

Objective


CC Image courtesy of Rob Enslin on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Design the BoxMake focused decisions to design the package for an idea, which

communicates information about its important features.

Teams create a physical “box” that sells an idea, whether it is a tangible product or not. The box serves as a focusing device that wraps up intangible information into a physical object, prompting decisions along the way. Through this, your team must decide on important features and other

aspects of your vision that are difficult to articulate.

When presenting or “selling” the boxes to each other, a number of things come to life, including the translation of features into benefits. This exercise can facilitate any vision-oriented discussion. The resulting boxes may live

on after the session is over as a friendly reminder of the big picture.

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

Paper and markers work, but don’t hesitate to use craft supplies like blank white cardboard boxes from a mailing store, markers, craft paper, stickers, tape and scissors.

Sample boxes may provide inspiration. Cereal boxes with their free prize offers, bold imagery and nutritional information are good. Plain “store-label” boxes, gift boxes and toy boxes give a range of voices. Teams that are heavily entrenched in business-as-usual may benefit most from this.

Before creating a box, the team should reflect on what could be on it. Consider laying out building blocks, such as possible names of the idea, customers, or buyers, and possible features and functions.

This may be familiar ground, or it may be new. The key is to give teams just enough information to feel comfortable starting.

Give the teams a set amount of time, 30 minutes or more, to create the box for their idea. Ask them to imagine coming across the box on a retail shelf, shrink-wrapped and ready for sale. In designing the box, teams may ask: What’s it called? Who’s it for? What’s its tagline or slogan? What are its most compelling features? Benefits? What imagery would make it stand out to you? There is no wrong way to make the box.

Teams may self-organize naturally; most participants will want to create their own box.

Finally, each team or individual has the chance to “sell” their boxes. Consider using a timer for these presentations, and offering a prize to the most convincing team.

Look for breakthroughs as teams sell the boxes. When selling, people naturally translate features into benefits. The phrases “so that” or “because” bridge otherwise mechanical features into benefits.

The exercise can be open-ended or the teams can converge on a shared box. For the latter, note the differences and similarities in how each team interpreted their box. Build on the common ground in the similarities, and isolate differences for discussion. Consider running a second round, incorporating the agreements into one box.

http://www.gamestorming.com/?s=design+the+box

Objective

Participants: 6–30 Time: 1+ hours

CC Image courtesy of Design by Fire Events on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Affinity MapDiscover embedded patterns of thinking by sorting and clustering information into relationships and

similar categories.

Brainstorming works to get a high quantity of information and ideas on the table, but the key is to gather meaning from all the data.

This exercise can help your group discover embedded patterns (and sometimes break old patterns) of thinking by sorting and clustering language-based information into relationships. It can also provide a sense of where everyone’s thinking is focused. This exercise helps define categories and meta-categories within a cluster of ideas, and illuminates

which ideas are most common within the group.

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

1. On a sheet of flip-chart paper, write a question the players will respond to along with a visual that complements it. Conduct this game only when you have a question for the players that you know will generate at least 20 pieces of information to sort.

2. Ask each player to take 10 minutes to generate sticky notes in response to the question. Use index cards on a table if you have a group of four or less. Conduct this part of the process silently.

3. Collect the ideas from the group and post them on a flat working surface visible to everyone.

4. Based on guidance from the players, sort the ideas into columns (or clusters) based on relationships. Involve the group in the process as much as possible. Have the players approach the wall to post their notes—it saves time—and allow them to do an initial, general sorting in columns or clusters.

5. Create a sticky-note “parking lot” close to the display for ideas that don’t appear to fall into a natural category. Redundancy in ideas is OK; don’t discard sticky notes because they’re already represented. It’s helpful to leave repeated ideas posted since it indicates to the group how many people are thinking the same thing. At this stage, ask the players to try to avoid searching for higher categories and simply to focus on grouping the information based on the affinities.

6. Once the content is sorted, ask the group to suggest categories that represent the columns you’ve created and write the categories they agree on at the top of the column (or near a cluster if you chose a cluster rather than a column display). Don’t let the players spend an inordinate amount of time agreeing on a name for a category. If there’s disagreement over “Facilities” versus “Infrastructure,” write them both. If the players produce categories that are significantly different, pay attention to which category gets the most approval from the group and write that one.

http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/affinity-map/

Objective


CC Image courtesy of Mr.TinDC on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Impact & Effort MatrixMap and evaluate possible actions based on: 1) effort and cost required to implement, 2) potential impact

(long-term vs. short-term payoff).

In this exercise, possible actions are mapped based on two factors: effort required to implement and potential impact. Categorizing ideas in this way is a useful technique in making decisions, as it requires everyone in the group to balance and evaluate suggested actions before committing

to them.

As you place your ideas into the matrix, the group may openly discuss the position of elements. An idea can be bolstered by the group, moving it up in potential impact or down in effort. The category of high impact, low effort will often hold the set of ideas that your group most agrees

upon and is committed to.

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

Given a goal, a group may have a number of ideas for how to achieve it.

To open the exercise, frame the goal in terms of a “What to do” or

“What we need” question. This may sound as simple as “What do we

need to reach our goal?” Ask the group to generate ideas individually

on sticky notes.

Then, using Post-Up, ask them to present their ideas back to the group

by placing them within a 2×2 matrix that is organized by impact and

effort: Impact: The potential payoff of the action, vs. Effort: The cost

of taking the action.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-decision-making/impact-effort-matrix-2/

Objective

Participants: 3–10 Time: 30 min–1 hour

CC Image courtesy of toffehoff on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Planning PokerPlanning Poker is an estimating technique to quickly gain team-consensus as to which possible solutions

to prototype and which to toss out.

You’ve identified a number of possible solutions to a problem, but the team can’t build all of them. Planning Poker can help the team quickly gain consensus as to which possible solutions require too much effort, and therefore, should be tossed out.

Planning poker is great because it:• Fosters collaboration by engaging the entire team• Creates a consensus estimate rather than having a single person

driving the estimate• Exposes issues early through discussion of each possible solution

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

1. Each team member gets a set of four cards that read Small,

Medium, Large, and X-Large.

2. The Product Owner (or session facilitator) presents one possible

solution at a time to the team.

3. The Product Owner then answers any questions the team might

have about the solution.

4. Each participant privately selects a card representing his or

her estimate of the “size” (taking into account time, risk, and

complexity) of the solution.

5. When everybody is ready with an estimate, all cards are presented

simultaneously.

6. If there is consensus on a particular size then the team moves to

the next solution.

7. In the event that the estimates differ, the highest and lowest

estimators defend their estimates to the rest of the team.

8. The group briefly debates the arguments.

9. A new round of estimation is made (see steps 4 and 5 above).

10. Continue until consensus has been reached for each possible

solution.

http://agile.dzone.com/articles/introduction-planning-poker

Objective

Participants: Entire team Time: 15-30 minutes

CC Image courtesy of bartmobiel on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Forced RankingMake decisions as a group to determine a prioritized

list, by ranking items relative to each other.

When prioritizing, a group may need to agree on a single, ranked list of items.

This exercise requires the group to make difficult decisions in creating a forced ranking of each item relative to the others. It requires

participants to make clear-cut assessments about a set of items. This is an important step in making decisions on matters like investments, business priorities, and features or requirements—wherever a clear,

prioritized list is needed.

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

To set up the game, participants need to have two things: an unranked

list of items and the criteria for ranking them. Because forced ranking

makes the group judge items closely, the criteria should be as clear as

possible. For example, in ranking features for a product, the criteria

might be “Most important features for User X.” In the case of developing

business priorities, the criteria might be “Most potential impact over the

next year.”

If there are multiple dimensions to a ranking, it is best to rank the items

separately for each criterion, and then combine the scores to determine

the final ranking. It is difficult for participants to weigh more than one

criterion at a time, as in the confusing “Most potential impact over the

next year and least amount of effort over the next six months.”

In this case, it would be best to rank items twice: once by impact and

once by effort. Although there is no hard limit on the number of items

to be ranked, in a small-group setting the ideal length of a list is about

10 items. This allows participants to judge items relative to one another

without becoming overwhelming. By making the entire list visible on a

flip chart or whiteboard, participants will have an easier time ranking a

larger list.

To play, create a matrix of items and the criteria. Each participant ranks

the items by assigning it a number, with the most important item being

#1, the second most important item as #2, and so forth, to the least

important item. Because the ranking is “forced,” no items can receive

equal weight.

Once the items have been ranked, tally them and discuss the prioritized

list and next steps.

http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/350/

Objective

Participants: 3-10 Time: 30 min–1 hour

CC Image courtesy of James Kirkus-Lamont on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

20/20 VisionGet clarity around which projects or initiatives should have higher priority based on their perceived benefits.

This exercise is about getting group clarity around which projects or initiatives should be more of a priority than others. Because teams in the organization often divide their attention among multiple projects, it can be refreshing to refocus and realign with projects that have the biggest

impact relative to cost and effort.

You must thoughtfully evaluate and rank projects as a group, which can be challenging when they all seem important. Defining this together helps

ensure that the prioritization process is quality. The first phase of the game—describing and capturing the benefits—is significant because it

lays the groundwork for the difficult part of determining priorities.

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

1. To prepare, write any proposed project or initiative relevant to the players on sticky notes, one item per note. To start, it’s important that the initiatives you’ve written on the sticky notes are in random order. Shuffle them before the meeting starts—you can even blind-post —so that there is no implicit prioritization on your part.

2. Introduce the game by explaining to the players that 20/20 Vision is about forced prioritization based on perceived benefits. Verbalize the importance of building consensus on priorities to move the organization forward.

3. In a wall space visible to the players, post an initiative and ask the players to describe its benefits. Write their descriptions on a sticky note posted next to that initiative. If there’s disagreement around the benefits of an initiative, write down all of the points made. Assume there’s validity to multiple perspectives and let the group indicate the majority perspective through the ranking process. If the group has a shared sense of the benefits for each initiative, don’t spend much time clarifying them; move to prioritization and respond to questions around benefits as they come up.

4. Repeat for all relevant projects or initiatives until the benefits have been thoroughly described, captured on stickies and posted.

5. Ask the players if any initiatives are missing. If so, request that they write them down, post them, and discuss their benefits so that you can capture them.

6. Move into a neighboring wall space, pull down two random initiatives and ask the players which is more or less important to the organization’s goals.

7. Post the one that the group generally agrees is more important above the one they generally agree is less important.

8. Move another initiative into the new space. Ask the players if it is more or less important than the two posted and post it accordingly—higher priorities at the top, lower priorities at the bottom.

9. Repeat this process until all initiatives have been thoroughly discussed and prioritized.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-closing/2020-vision/

Objective

Participants: 5-10 Time: 30 min–1.5 hour

CC Image courtesy of Les Black on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Dot VotingAgree on ideas that resonate most within the group

to narrow down and prioritize a large amount of possibilities.

In a gamestorming session, when there are too many good ideas, too many concepts, and too many possibilities to proceed, dot voting is one of the simplest ways to prioritize and converge upon an agreed solution.

Use this technique to collaboratively prioritize any set of items. You could use it to hone a list of features, agree on discussion topics, or choose

from multiple strategies and concepts.

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

First, the group needs a set of things to vote on! This may be something

they have just developed, such as a wall of sticky notes, or it may be a

flip-chart list that captures the ideas in one place. Ask the group to cast

their votes by placing a dot next to the items they feel the most strongly

about. They may use stickers or markers to do this. As a rule of thumb,

giving each participant five votes to cast works well.

Participants cast their votes all at once and they may vote more than

once for a single item if they feel strongly about it. Once all the votes

are cast, tally them, and if necessary make a list of the items by their

new rank.

This prioritized list becomes the subject of discussion and decision-

making. In some cases, it may be useful to reflect on ideas that didn’t

receive votes to verify that they haven’t been left behind without cause.

http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/dot-voting/

Objective

Participants: 3+ Time: 15–30 minutes

CC Image courtesy of Alan Levine on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Fists-to-Five VotingQuickly determine what each person’s opinion is when a group is discussing a possible solution.

When a group comes to consensus on a matter, it means that everyone in the group can support the decision; they don’t all have to think it’s the

best decision, but they all agree they can live with it.

This tool is an easy-to-use way to build consensus among diverse groups.

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

To use this technique the Team Leader restates a decision the group needs to make and asks everyone to show their level of support. Each person responds at the same time by showing a fist or a number of fingers that corresponds to their opinion.

Fist

I need to talk more on the proposal and require changes for it to pass. (This is a no-vote—a way to block consensus.)

1 FingerI still need to discuss certain issues and suggest changes that should be made.

2 FingersI am more comfortable with the proposal but would like to discuss some minor issues.

3 FingersI’m not in total agreement but feel comfortable to let this decision or a proposal pass without further discussion.

4 FingersI think it’s a good idea/decision and will work for it.

5 FingersIt’s a great idea and I will be one of the leaders in implementing it.

The Team Leader then looks around the room and quickly tallies the votes. If anyone holds up fewer than three fingers, they should be given the opportunity to briefly state their objections, including what it would take to get them to vote with the majority. The team should address their concerns in return.

Teams continue the Fist-to-Five process until they achieve consensus (a minimum of three fingers or higher).

http://freechild.org/Firestarter/Fist2Five.htm

Objective


CC Image courtesy of David L. Haeni on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

New-Useful-Feasible TestEvaluate the reality of proposed ideas by having

everyone rate them on how New, Useful, and Feasible they are.

As a group develops and proposes ideas in a brainstorming session, it may be useful to do a quick “reality check.” In the NUF Test, participants rate an idea on three criteria: to what degree is it

New, Useful, and Feasible?

The goal of this exercise is to check big ideas against the realities they will face after the meeting is over. It is not intended to “kill” good ideas,

but to identify possible weak points so that they can be shaped and improved before being set out into the world.

NARROW THE FIELD

Instructions

Set up the game by quickly creating a matrix of ideas against the

criteria:

• New: Has the idea been tried before? An idea will score higher here if

it is significantly different from approaches that have come before it.

A new idea captures attention and possibility.

• Useful: Does the idea actually solve the problem? An idea that solves

the problem completely, without creating any new problems, will

score better here.

• Feasible: Can it be done? A new and useful idea still has to be weighed

against its cost to implement. Ideas that require fewer resources and

effort to be realized will score better here.

To play, the group rates each idea from 1 to 10 for each criterion and

tallies the results. A group may choose to write down scores individually

at first and then call out their results on each item and criterion to

create the tally. Scoring should be done quickly, as in a “gut” check.

A discussion after the scores have been tallied may uncover

uncertainties about an idea or previously underrated ideas. The group

may then choose to make an idea stronger, as in “How do we make this

idea more feasible with fewer resources?”

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-any-meeting/nuf-test/

Objective


CC Image courtesy of Brian Smithson on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Stakeholder InterviewsReach out to stakeholders to uncover the varied business

needs and motivations involving your product.

Interviewing project stakeholders is an invaluable resource for uncovering the goals, needs, and frustrations of those external to the core team but who

have a vested interest in the outcome of the product discovery process.

Perform these interviews to both understand the breadth of requirements and activities behind the efforts to improve your product, as well as assess the current organizational knowledge of user needs and problems. This overview should result in materials describing, at a high-level, the user, business, and organizational problems currently experienced by stakeholders, as well as

their plans or hopes for improving the team’s product.

NARROW THE FIELD

Who is involved?

Stakeholder interviews require a product team capable of identifying

and recruiting stakeholders internally, moderating and note-taking

during the interview, and combing through the responses to understand

the wider range of business needs and goals involving your product.

How is it done?

1. Create an interview guide listing the general or department-specific

questions you’d like to pose to individual stakeholders.

2. Recruit based on willingness to chat with the product team, and be

sure to schedule as much in advance as possible, given that your

stakeholders are most likely very busy.

3. During the one-on-one interviews, spend some time at the beginning

briefly introducing the purpose of the interviews and what sorts of

questions you’ll be asking; they should last 30 minutes to an hour.

The team moderator should feel free to deviate from the guide

whenever an interesting topic has been broached.

4. Sit down as a team and uncover key insights, powerful quotes, and

stakeholder needs from your notes; these will inform how your team

understands the product within the larger organizational goals.

Objective


CC Image courtesy of mobology on Flickr

NARROW THE FIELD

Contextual Inquiry InterviewsObserve users interacting with your product or

prototype, asking probing questions into the how and why of their actions.

When needing to understand the particular context in which your customers interact with your product or service, employ contextual inquiry interviews to both observe and probe into the specific behaviors

you’re curious about.

These interviews should include a healthy balance of questions delving into thoughts and emotions at moments of interest, as well as passive observation of the participant demonstrating how the product or prototype is used to achieve their goals. After the interviews, the team should be able to combine responses and observations into key insights that will

drive understanding of user, context, and solution.

NARROW THE FIELD

Who is involved?





interview, to relieve that burden from the moderator; and a team to

comb through, analyze, and identify learnings for understanding the

user or proposed solution at the end of the process.

How is it done?








2. Create an interview guide for the sorts of questions you would like

to pose to participants, as well as key actions or emotions to watch

for during observation.





4. Review the notes as a team after all the interviews. Pick out

insights that can identify any opportunities to solve your user’s

needs or problems, or if testing a prototype, determine whether it

was validated through user interaction in context.

Objective



CREATE TESTS

Define AssumptionsThe solution to be tested contains implicit

assumptions about users that must be accounted for before testing commences.

In this activity, the team lists the assumptions inherent in the solution(s) that are going to be tested. After this, the team

will quantify success and failure of the solution against those assumptions in the Operational Definition.

CREATE TESTS

Instructions

The key idea and belief that we are trying to prove is our hypothesis.

Typically, it represents a solution to a problem for our users (or other

customers) that we believe will provide value. It should be clear

and specific enough to be something that we can break down into

component assumptions, to answer the question of why we think

customers will find our product or feature valuable.

The artifact from this step is simply a list of statements that must be

true about the solution or about users in order for the solution to be

effective.

If, for example, a solution involves a button on a page to drive email

newsletter signups, some assumptions might be “Readers can see the

button”, and “Readers understand what the button does”, and “Readers

want to sign up for newsletters”.


Objective

CC Image courtesy of Tanja Cappell on Flickr

CREATE TESTS

Operational DefinitionAfter defining assumptions about your solution or your users, quantify how your team will prove or

disprove those assumptions.

Anything that has not been previously proven by internal or external research is an operational definition that needs to be proven or

demonstrated. In this exercise, we break down the hypothesis into key assumptions that we can measure and prove or disprove.

CREATE TESTS

Instructions

An operational definition is a breakdown of the hypothesis into

key assumptions that we are making about our customers, their

motivations, and their predicted behaviors, that we can turn into

operational parameters. These are statements that are measurable and

falsifiable, so that we can determine whether our hypothesis is correct,

and if not, where it is not correct based on our assumptions.

The template for each assumption is as follows:

<Describe an assumption about the customer that contributes to their

impression that the product or service is valuable. Repeat for every

assumption that qualifies.>

Success:

<Describe behaviors, outcomes, or statements for the user to

agree with that confirm that this assumption is correct. Repeat as

necessary.>

Failure:

<Describe behaviors, outcomes, or statements for the user to

disagree with that contradict this assumption or prove that it is

incorrect. Repeat as necessary.>

Existing Proofs:

<List proofs from customer data, analysis, or existing internal/

external research that contribute to proving or disproving your

assumption. If research/data is very strong, you may not need to test

this assumption explicitly in user testing. Where applicable, link to

citations.>


Objective

CC Image courtesy of Steven Depolo on Flickr

CREATE TESTS

Live-Data PrototypesCreate a prototype to test with live users at a

statistically significant scale

Qualitative testing helps you uncover the “why”. Quantitative testing proves or disproves your solution’s success. Live-data prototypes

enable running of these quantitative tests.

CREATE TESTS

Instructions

Live-data prototypes make use of data or APIs to insert real content

into a prototype. This kind of prototype has more overhead than simple

paper prototypes or clickable wireframes, but to test some solutions,

live data will be a necessity. Live-data prototypes are built with HTML,

CSS, and Javascript most of the time.

Live-data prototypes will need to be tracked using an analytics tool to

measure success.

To evaluate your live-data prototype, use a Product Scorecard which

lists KPIs and targets. If the solution meets the targets -- or doesn’t --

you have an answer about the efficacy of your solution.

Participants: 1+ Time: 30 min to a few days

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Dmitry Baranovskiy on Flickr

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Contextual Inquiry InterviewsObserve users interacting with your product or

prototype, asking probing questions into the how and why of their actions.

When needing to understand the particular context in which your customers interact with your product or service, employ contextual inquiry interviews to both observe and probe into the specific behaviors

you’re curious about.

These interviews should include a healthy balance of questions delving into thoughts and emotions at moments of interest, as well as passive observation of the participant demonstrating how the product or prototype is used to achieve their goals. After the interviews, the team should be able to combine responses and observations into key insights that will

drive understanding of user, context, and solution.

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Who is involved?





interview, to relieve that burden from the moderator; and a team to

comb through, analyze, and identify learnings for understanding the

user or proposed solution at the end of the process.

How is it done?








2. Create an interview guide for the sorts of questions you would like

to pose to participants, as well as key actions or emotions to watch

for during observation.





4. Review the notes as a team after all the interviews. Pick out insights

that can identify any opportunities to solve your user’s needs

or problems, or if testing a prototype, determine whether it was

validated through user interaction in context.

Objective



VALIDATE WITH USERS

Concierge TestingGuide potential customers through a proposed product

and determine their willingness to adopt it.

Concierge testing is an interview-based method for validating solutions with potential customers by asking them, in their native environment like a cafe or grocery store, whether or not they would be interested in paying

for a hypothetical product or service.

By engaging with the participant in the right environment and through directed questioning or guided show-and-tell, the team is capable of truly gauging prospective success with someone in the right frame of mind to similarly use the product after launch. Concierge testing produces validation or invalidation of a solution, based on verbal or emotional

responses from participants.

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Who is involved?

Concierge testing requires a team to select the types of environments

where they can find potential customers (coffee shops, bookstores, etc.;

or, through analytics data to find current users who match your ideal

participant), to identify how to pitch the hypothetical product to these

individuals (either like a sales pitch, or more granularly like a guided

tour through the experience), and to gather responses to determine the

success or failure of the potential product direction.

How is it done?

1. Come up with a pitch or guided experience that encapsulates how

your proposed solution will address your customer’s needs (nothing

is too “blue sky” or impractical; think big to really underscore how

users emotionally respond to your pitch).

2. Determine who your target customer is and how to approach them.

Do you find these participants in local coffee shops, or in your

existing user base? In the same vein, create a field guide for how

you’ll present the hypothetical product experience to the customer,

and to what level of detail the experience is conveyed to them.

3. Go into the field to locate these customers, or ask those in your

user base to come in-house, for one-on-one concierge testing

between your team and the participant. Have one team member be

the presenter/concierge, and at least one other be the note-taker.

4. With enough responses collected, meet as a team to discuss

verbal and emotional responses to the concierge testing, as well as

determine if the offering was met with interest, apathy, or disdain.

Objective


CC Image courtesy of Beth Punches on Flickr

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Concept TestingLeverage concept sketches and interface designs to judge how

well a product direction attracts your potential users.

Concept testing can quickly identify whether a chosen solution appeals to potential customers and their needs through concept-based

questionnaires, sketches, mockups, or simple interface screens.

While high-fidelity prototypes provide study participants with a test product to interact with, teams may want to take a step before that type of validation and see if customer responses to just the idea or concept are satisfactory. Whether this research technique is implemented through online surveys or in-person interviews, it will result in response data that the team can explore to determine whether the concept can succeed in

the current market.

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Who is involved?

Concept testing requires a recruiter to identify participants who are

capable of attending a session in-house and verbalizing whether the

concepts your team comes up with are lacking or meet their needs; a

moderator to present concepts to the participant; a note-taker or video

recorder to capture any interesting remarks or observations about the

session; and a team to analyze which concepts performed the best

against varied user goals and attitudes.

How is it done?

1. Determine how best to communicate the product concepts your

team created to the participants. Should they be conveyed through

verbal communication, or via sketches and low-fidelity mockups?

2. Recruit around ten or so participants who are willing to come into

the building and share their thoughts on these concepts; be sure

to pick those who are capable of verbalizing their reactions and

attitudes toward the concept.

3. During the session, present the concept to the user in a short, 5 or

10 second period, hide the material if using sketches or mockups,

and subsequently ask them to describe what they remembered

about the concept and if it held any appeal.

4. Sit down as a team, go through the various concepts presented to

the participants, and pick out the clear winners to build out and

losers to avoid.

Objective

Participants: 10+ Effort: Low Time: Days

CC Image courtesy of César Astudillo on Flickr

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Desirability StudyPut your prototype’s visual design and layout to the test

with potential users and their preferences.

Desirability studies play an important role in discovering your customer’s potential attitudes and emotional responses toward a prototype’s visual

design direction.

Because visual presentation supports a product’s usability, teams will want to validate that a chosen solution and its initial visual designs are met with good first impressions and perceptions of utility and credibility. At the end of a desirability study, the team can expect to receive a list of responses, usually in the form of adjectives or attributes, concerning how

the participant emotionally reacted to a particular direction.

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Who is involved?

Desirability studies require a recruiter to source participants who are

willing to come into the building and communicate their emotional or

attitudinal responses to your prototype’s visual designs; a moderator

to present the mockups to participants; a note-taker or video recorder

to capture responses so the moderator can focus on facilitating the

session; and a team to synthesize the results and identify winning (and

losing) visual directions.

How is it done?

1. To get the most from this study, create several high-fidelity, visually

differentiated mockups to show participants, capturing all the

different interface and style directions the solution could pursue.

2. Recruit participants who are capable of opening up and

communicating their emotional responses to the mockups

presented.

3. Create index cards with a variety of adjectives or attributes (both

good and bad) that could be said about your solution; or, leverage

decks that have already been created, like the 118 Product

Reaction Cards from Microsoft.

4. During the sessions, present each visual direction and have

participants select the cards that best describe their emotions or

attitudes toward its style and layout.

5. After enough responses have been collected, come together as a

team and determine which direction aligns with your product goals,

based on the adjectives and attributes selected by participants.

Objective


VALIDATE WITH USERS

Card SortingLet your potential users group and organize the

building blocks of your product to validate navigation and taxonomy.

Asking potential customers how they might logically group and organize proposed product features, concepts, or experiences can be used to validate hierarchies, navigational structures, and information architecture.

This research method is particularly useful for teams that want to validate, across a few different types of users, the complex or possibly numerous relationships between the solution’s features, functionalities, and types of content. Card sorting should ideally deliver clear taxonomies that the team can leverage to successfully build the most useful navigation and

flows within the final product.

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Who is involved?

Card sorting requires a recruiter to find individuals who are

representative of the target audience and are capable of thinking

aloud and communicating their decisions; a moderator to manage the

presentation and sorting of the cards while the participant speaks; and

a team to analyze the groupings and form conclusions on the most

successful way to organize the product’s taxonomies, navigation, and

workflows.

How is it done?

1. Create index cards that each represent a potential product feature,

functionality, or type of content that can be understood by the

participants. For example, if testing an e-commerce solution, your

team may put product names on the cards; or, for a news site,

you may write down article features like “Saving”, “Sharing”, or

“Commenting”.

2. Recruit participants who represent the various types of users you

may expect to use the product and who are willing to come into the

building for the exercise.

3. During the session, decide if you want the participant to do open

card sorting, in which they can write their own titles for their

groupings, or closed card sorting, in which the moderator will ask

the participant to group under predetermined categories.

4. After all sessions have been completed, analyze the results as

a team and discuss how your solution supports (or hinders) the

navigation and flows your customers expect.

Objective


CC Image courtesy of Yandle on Flickr

VALIDATE WITH USERS

A/B TestingTest different solutions against each other in your product’s production environment to see which

performs the best.

Widely practiced for small, incremental improvements to a product, multivariate testing and cohort analysis can also play a significant role in validating whether a larger-scale prototype gains traction with a team’s

users in production environments.

While some teams may initially be uncomfortable with the idea of rapidly developing and deploying small prototypes to production users, these methods may be the fastest and most efficient way for validating ideas or solutions with real, large-sample results. The findings from A/B testing are quantitative, providing the team with confidence that winning variants

will actually deliver value and improve the current experience.

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Who is involved?

A/B testing requires an analytics or reporting tool currently functioning

in your production environment; an analytics team to pull data from the

tool and, in some cases, sanitize the results; and a team to sit down

and discuss the results of the multivariate testing, potentially even the

reasons why a certain variant performed better than others.

How is it done?

1. Ensure that there is a way to deploy the variants of an A/B test

to your production environment; if not, discuss options with your

technology manager or CIG.

2. Fully develop and QA each variant for deployment; make sure that

the variants can coexist peacefully with the other features in your

product.

3. After deployment, discuss how long the A/B testing needs to run,

based on how accurate you’d like the results to be; generally,

greater accuracy needs a longer test-run.

4. After the established length of runtime, ask the analytics team to

determine which variant (or whether the control) improved your

team’s main KPI, and discuss the reasons behind this result.

Objective

Participants: 1000+ Effort: Medium Time: Weeks

CC Image courtesy of Daniel Oines on Flickr

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Demand Validation TestsDetermine whether there is a desire among users

for your feature or product

You have a product or feature idea, but need to know if your users or potential users are interested in it. A landing page test or fake door test can help you determine whether there is a market for your product or

feature.

VALIDATE WITH USERS

How is it done?

Create a landing page or “fake door” for your product or feature.

If you create a landing page for your fake product, it should contain:

• A pitch: what’s your product going to do for users?

• A call to action: sign up with an email address to get on a

waitlist, for example

The pitch could be a video of a prototype that shows what the product

would do, as if it’s been built, or as simple as a sign up for a service

you’re describing. Or, it could be a list of subscriptions with their prices

and features, each of which has a link to register and buy.

Next, bring traffic to your landing page. You can do this with Google

Adwords, Facebook ads, or promoting on social media, for example.

Make sure your call-to-action has a Thank You page. If the user provided

an email address to sign up, the Thank You page could say “Thanks,

we’ll be in touch!” or explain that you are developing a new product and

wanted to test demand.

For a “fake door” to test a feature idea on your site or app, create the

button, link, or other element you would want users to engage with,

and put it on your site where you would likely put the real thing. For

example, if you are measuring interest in a newsletter, create a link or

form users could use to sign up for that newsletter.

Objective

Participants: 1000+ Effort: Medium Time: Weeks

CC Image courtesy of Daniel Oines on Flickr

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Wizard-of-Oz TestsUser test a complicated product or feature without

actually building it by pulling strings behind the curtain

Give the impression of full functionality by faking certain interactions behind the scenes in order to gauge demand or test the value of your

product or feature.

VALIDATE WITH USERS

How is it done?

When a fully-functional prototype is too costly or time-consuming to

build, you can fake parts of the experience using hard-coded data or a

man-behind-the-curtain.

This kind of test only works on a small scale, but can be invaluable to

learn how customers or testers -- who believe they are using a real

product -- would really interact with your product if it were fully built.

For example, to test a search function, there might be a team member

behind the scenes hand-picking search results or rewriting the query

based on what the tester searches for, to determine what kind of

filtering, results, or sort order provides most value.

Objective

Participants: 4-6 Effort: Medium Time: 1-2 hours

Image courtesy of HCI Group

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Moderated Usability StudyPose tasks and questions to your users to see how successfully

they can interact with your product or prototype.

A usability study focuses on a user’s ability to achieve a goal or complete a task while using a product or prototype, and gives a sense of whether a

user will find the provided functionality helpful or attractive.

These studies generally fall into two categories—remote or lab—depending on whether the study participant and moderator are performing tasks and receiving feedback in the same location (like an in-house facility) or separately (via web interface or phone). This method should produce recorded notes, audio, or video that the team can later analyze for

opportunities to improve the existing experience.

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Who is involved?

Moderated usability studies require a recruiter to find participants that are

willing to be interviewed while using the product either in-person and in the

building or through webcam; a moderator during the usability test, to issue

instructions and follow-up questions; a note-taker or video recorder to jot

down interesting remarks or observations; and a team to synthesize the

results and determine next steps.

How is it done?

1. Create a testing script for instructions that the moderator will follow

during the session, including tasks for the participant to complete or

questions to answer. Don’t be too detailed, however; moderators can

course-correct when needed during the session.


participant, either via an in-house device or through a network outside

the building.

3. Recruit participants who are either willing to come in-house and sit

with the moderator, or have the necessary equipment to receive and

record audio and visual remotely.

4. During the sessions, have the moderator run through the test script,

but also deviate when interesting remarks or observations have been

made; have the note-taker listen into the session, or record for later

usage.

5. Sit down as a team when all participants have been interviewed,

and synthesize results to see whether the product or prototype was

successfully usable.

Objective



VALIDATE WITH USERS

Unmoderated Usability StudyRecord users interacting with your product or prototype through webcam or screen recording to see how well

they can perform tasks.

A usability study focuses on a user’s ability to achieve a goal or complete a task while using a product or prototype, and gives a sense of whether a user

will find the provided functionality helpful or attractive.

Unmoderated studies are generally remote and unavailable to the team until the participant has completed the series of tasks requested by the team; because of a higher margin for error, this kind of study should be limited in scope, focusing on a few specific features. This method should produce recorded audio or video of the participant’s screen and voice, which the team

can later analyze for opportunities to improve the existing experience.

VALIDATE WITH USERS

Who is involved?

Unmoderated usability studies require a third-party provider who will both

recruit suitable candidates who are in their participant pool and who are

capable of communicating without a moderator, as well as deliver and

record the session for use afterward; and a team who will take the recorded

audio or video and synthesize results to uncover new insights and decide

next steps.

How is it done?

1. Create a testing script for instructions that the participants will follow

by themselves during the session, including tasks for the participant

to complete or questions to answer. Be as detailed as possible, due to

the lack of moderator.

2. Ensure that the product or prototype is fully accessible to the participant

through a network outside the building.

3. Administer the usability tests through the third-party provider, who

will be recruiting and delivering the instructions/questions to them

remotely.

4. Sit down as a team when all participants have been recorded, and

synthesize results to see whether the product or prototype was

successfully usable.Objective



PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Synthesize ResultsSynthesize your user testing results to draw conclusions about the prototype you tested.

After user testing is complete, the team will be able to determine the success or failure of the prototype that was tested, which will help

inform what the next steps should be.

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Instructions

1. Describe the goals of your results session and its outcome.

2. Evaluate your test results against the key metrics and operational

parameters that were defined earlier. This is a time to avoid

accidental positive or negative bias, as you need to distill the facts

and compare them to the value assumptions and hypothesis to

empirically measure whether individual assumptions are provable or

disprovable. This should result in, essentially, a “score” of how well

the feature did in usability and value for the user.

3. List the assumptions that had problems or action items associated

with them.

Once you’ve derived your synthesized results, you have an opportunity for

one of two potential next steps:

1. The team can decide collectively that this feature is “disproven”, and

move on to the next project.

2. If there are sufficient learnings that can be addressed, and the team

believes that the trade-off in time is worth the effort, the team can

propose a minimal product set of changes and restart the build-

measure-learn cycle.

Objective

Participants: Entire team Time: 1+ hours

CC Image courtesy of Grant Frederiksen on Flickr

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

The Five WhysDiscover the root cause of a problem by drilling down

below the surface to relate it to its context.

Problems are tackled more sustainably when they’re addressed at the source.

This exercise helps to relate a problem to its context so your group can see the bigger picture. The goal is to move beyond the surface of the problem and discover the root cause. By reading more between the lines, you will gain meaningful insights into the source of a problem

and get the greatest leverage out of solving it.

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Instructions

1. Before the meeting, choose a problem your team needs to evaluate. Write the problem in an area visible to all the group members. Try to draw something to represent it.

2. Distribute sticky notes to each player and ask them to number five of them 1 through 5.

3. Ask the players to review the problem statement and ask themselves WHY it’s a problem. Encourage them to be honest and to write the first thing that comes to mind each time they ask “Why?”. If they jump immediately to the perceived root of the problem, they may miss the opportunity to see the stages.

4. Have the players write their first response on sticky note 1.

5. Tell the players to ask themselves WHY the answer on sticky note 1 is true and write their next response on sticky note 2.

6. Next, tell the players to ask WHY the answer on sticky note 2 is true and write the response on sticky note 3.

7. Repeat this until every numbered sticky note has a response on it.

8. Below the problem statement, write the word “Why?” five times in a column; draw lines to create columns for each player’s set of notes. Ask the players to post their responses on the wall, starting with 1 at the top and ending with 5 at the bottom.

9. Review the “Why” columns with the group and note commonalities and differences.

10. Allow for discussion.

11. Rewrite the problem statement on a sheet of flip-chart paper. Work with the group to build consensus on which of the five “Whys” offer the most meaningful insight into the problem. Ask a volunteer to rewrite the “Whys”—one per sticky note—as the group agrees on them. Put the stickies in a final column under the problem statement. If you have time, discuss “what’s next.”

12. Note: Five Whys is a good start, but many problems require more or less interrogation to get to the root. Ask “Why?” until you feel the group is getting somewhere. Build longer WHY columns if necessary, and keep going until the players get to meaningful insights.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-problem-solving/the-5-whys/

Objective

Participants: 5-10 Time: 1+ hours

CC Image courtesy of Luke and Kate Bosman on Flickr

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Dot VotingAgree on ideas that resonate most within the group

to narrow down and prioritize a large amount of possibilities.

In a gamestorming session, when there are too many good ideas, too many concepts, and too many possibilities to proceed, dot voting is one of the simplest ways to prioritize and converge upon an agreed solution.

Use this technique to collaboratively prioritize any set of items. You could use it to hone a list of features, agree on discussion topics, or choose

from multiple strategies and concepts.

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Instructions

First, the group needs a set of things to vote on! This may be something

they have just developed, such as a wall of sticky notes, or it may be a

flip-chart list that captures the ideas in one place. Ask the group to cast

their votes by placing a dot next to the items they feel the most strongly

about. They may use stickers or markers to do this. As a rule of thumb,

giving each participant five votes to cast works well.

Participants cast their votes all at once and they may vote more than

once for a single item if they feel strongly about it. Once all the votes

are cast, tally them, and if necessary make a list of the items by their

new rank.

This prioritized list becomes the subject of discussion and decision-

making. In some cases, it may be useful to reflect on ideas that didn’t

receive votes to verify that they haven’t been left behind without cause.

http://www.gamestorming.com/core-games/dot-voting/

Objective

Participants: 3+ Time: 15–30 minutes

CC Image courtesy of Alan Levine on Flickr

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Pain-Gain MapCapture your users’ pains and gains to understand

what motivates and influences their decisions.

Many decisions often boil down to a person’s basic choices between benefit and harm.

This exercise helps develop an understanding of your users’ motivations and decisions. By capturing how they perceive

benefit and harm with regard to a certain context, your group may uncover the most relevant points to bring up in presenting to your organization or to influence users’ decisions. This key person may be the ultimate user of a product or may be the leader of an

organization whose approval is sought.

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Instructions

1. Start by writing the key person’s name or creating a quick sketch of

him on a wall.

2. Ask about this person’s pains first by prompting the group to step

inside his mind and think and feel as he does. Capture the answers

on one side of the person:

• What does a bad day look like for him?

• What is he afraid of?

• What keeps him awake at night?

• What is he responsible for?

3. What obstacles stand in his way? A person’s gains can be the

inversion of the pain situation—or can go beyond. Capture these on

the opposite side by asking:

• What does this person want and aspire to?

• How does he measure success?

• Given the subject at hand, how could this person benefit?

• What can we offer this person?

4. Summarize and prioritize the top pains and gains from the

exercise. You can use them when developing presentations,

value propositions, or any other instance where you are trying to

influence a decision.

http://www.gamestorming.com/games-for-design/pain-gain-map/


Objective

CC Image courtesy of reway2007 on Flickr

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Brown Bag Sharing SessionA short, informal group discussion designed to

promote learnings and shared understanding among other teams and colleagues.

After user testing is complete, you’ll want to share your findings with other members of the organization.

Called ‘Brown Bag’ because people often bring their lunch, these sessions provide an opportunity for colleagues to meet and

exchange information, ideas, and learnings in a more informal setting than the traditional product demo.

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Instructions

The host team gives an introduction to the format and the topic. Then

the participants all break out into smaller groups to discuss certain

questions or ideas. The value here is in the back-and-forth conversation

rather than a lecture format.

The less structure the better. One or max two people talk about what

they are doing, what is working and any challenges. It is meant to be a

lunch, after all, not a presentation or a meeting, and conflating one with

the other sometimes irritates people. If you do it regularly then it can

be a standard practice that everyone has to talk/lead in rotation, over a

period. The synergies will emerge, if there are any to be found, from the

more random conversation through mouthfuls of sandwich.

http://wiki.km4dev.org/Brown_Bag_Lunches

Participants: Team & guests Time: 30 min - 1 hour

Objective

CC Image courtesy of Halans on Flickr

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Go/No-Go DecisionDiscuss and decide whether to move a solution to

production, pivot, or scrap the idea altogether.

Now the team has reached a critical point—deciding whether to proceed with putting the solution you’ve tested into production.

Everything the team has done until now will feed into this decision. In the Go/No-Go Decision, the team evaluates all the available

evidence to determine the fate of the solution, in its current incarnation.

PIVOT ON LEARNINGS

Instructions

After having done the necessary work to understand if your solution is

usable and valuable, the team is faced with one of two outcomes:

1. You’ve validated the solution(s) with your customers. If this is the

case, it is ready to be added to the product backlog.

2. You’ve concluded that one or more of the solutions you’ve tested

does not resonate with users. If this is the case, the team must

decide to either pivot and test new solution ideas, or move on to a

new opportunity altogether.


Objective

Leadership & Management

NYT Product Discovery Activity Guide