A simple visual tool (kanban-like) to bring product vision to Agile Development Teams

1. The Product Canvas
a kanban for mobile product
development
Inspired by
Forrester’s
POST
method
www.ciandt.com
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2. This is the way teams are usually organized
QA /
Deploy
Development
Design
Product
Creation /
Management

3. Sometimes – at some extent – you need to do this!

4. Why do we need a development mindset shift for mobile?
the web apps ecossystems
the websites the apps belong to the
belong to the users who will decide
web and users to use them, keep
go there at their them or to delete
convenience. them. Once deleted…
UX is important UX is fundamental!

5. You’d better do it right or you are out!

6. How to bring product mindset to developers using Agile?
How to bring product mindset to Agile developers?
kanban meets POST = the product canvas

7. people
objectives
Who are they?
Main user types
(personas)
(one post-it per
user)
This app should
IMPORTANT
be:
DATES:
The most • <awesome>
important • <cool>
indirect gains for • <easy to use>
the business?
technology
strategy

8. people
These are the post-its that talk about the objectives
Who are they?
people who will be using the app.
(Main Personas,
their These are the post-its that talk about the
Perspectives
business objectives our client wants to
When you write the answers, you should put
and
Expectations) achieve with their app.
yourself on the shoes of the users.
This app should
IMPORTANT
be: (top 3)
They must take into account the users needs
DATES:
• <awesome>
Think about the most common contexts, The most
• <cool>
important
needs, feelings and expectations indirect gains for • <easy to
the business? use>
technology
strategy These are the post-its that talk about the
technology we chose and considerations
These are the post-its that talk about the
about it
strategy we will put together to make this app
reach the audience and potentially achieve
We cannot make decisions on technology
business objectives
before answering the questions on the
previous 3 quadrants!

9. people
objectives
Who are they?
(Main Personas,
Tip: Try to write on the post-its in a
their
Perspectives
and
Expectations)
way that, when you read them, youThe most
IMPORTANT
DATES:
This app should
be: (top 3)
• <awesome>
• <cool>
understand what’s there without important
indirect gains for
the business?
• <easy to
use>
the need to add the question.
technology
strategy
Bear in mind that the section
already gives you context!

10. people
Who are they?
Main user types
(personas)
(one post-it per
user)
Age, gender, personality, whatever
makes us understand who the
target audience is.
Building a mobile app for a teenager
is completely different than building
an app for a mom.
You can use separate post-its for
different people who will be using
the app

11. people
Why you as a user would use
this app?
Does it simplify something, is it
easier to use the mobile app
than the web? Is it useful? Is it
fun?

12. people
Context gives us the
opportunity to explore feelings
and so, to leverage user
experience.
Imagine that the app is to log a
baby’s development, a context
could be “when parents are
strolling with their baby”

13. people
Why should I, as a user,
keep the app in my phone
and come back to it from
time to time?
What draws me back to
open that app over and
over?

14. people
Who will tell me about
the app?
Am I going to find it in
sites I usually go? On
ads? By searching the
app store?

15. people
The app should open a
communication channel
with its users
What could we do to make
this happen inside and
outside the app?
Are there any existent
channels that could be
leveraged?

16. objectives
In a few words, what does this app
intend to be or to do?
Examples:
“making running social”
“allow parents to follow and share
the experience of raising a child”

17. objectives
Direct benefits of this app to the
business.
Generate revenues?
Learn about customers?
Sell products?
Promote the brand?

18. objectives
Is the app replacing a service that
cost more to the business?
Is it going to be a cheaper way to
advertise the brand?
Is it replacing manual work?

19. objectives
The most
important
indirect gains for
the business?
The intangible gains, like
“create a better relationship
with customers”, “association
of the brand to sustainable
production”, etc.

20. objectives
All the most important until the
roll-out of the product. IMPORTANT
DATES:
Is there any marketing campaign
associated with it?
Important milestones for the
business?
A good practice is also to put all
those dates in all team member’s
calendars.

21. objectives
This app should
be:
• <awesome>
• <cool>
• <easy to
use>
Ask the client to think about 3
attributes of the app that they
would love to hear from the
users most of the time.
It can be something like
“reliable, sleek, easy to use”.

22. Every app biggest challenge is how to
make itself visible inside an ocean –
literally – of apps on the app stores.
How can we make it possible to
users to find the app (and the app to
find its users?)
strategy
Some directions are: ad networks,
publishers, blogs, webpages,
Facebook fan pages, direct
marketing, PR pushes, etc.

23. We need to code the app so that
important metrics are collected.
What would be the most important
ones? E.g. “number of people who
completes the app’s main flow”,
“number of users that open the
app more than once a day”, etc.
Metric collection is a crucial part of
evolving the app in the right
direction.
strategy
The objective of the product canvas
is not to mention all of them but to
give emphasis to the most
important ones

24. Does the client think about
charging for the app? Did they
settle on a price already? Is the
strategy
app starting as paid and then
becoming free at some point? Will
it be free with ads? Free without
ads? Are in-app purchases going to
be available now or in the future?

25. What are the main features
we believe will make people
come back to the app very
often?
strategy

26. Make no mistake: it’s better to build a small app that will
evolve with real users’ feedback than trying to build a full-
fledged one before users see it. Your minimum viable product
is the app that validates your basic business assumptions or
people’s interest in your app.
Think about the iPhone when it first launched: it didn’t have
apps. Copy & Paste came along the way as well as the ability to
keep your data if you received a call while running an app. The
strategy iPhone was hugely popular even without those features.

27. Depending on the balance
between budget, user experience
goals, reach of the solution and
agility to bring the app to the
market, different technological
solutions cam be picked. Use the
diagram to clearly mark what was
chosen.
In the example, we have a native technology
app for iOS and Android devices. If
there’s custom work to
differentiate the app for tablets
and phones, make an annotation
mentioning that.

28. In a few words, list the main
drivers that made you decide
upon a platform in detriment of
other options.
If it’s too hard to explain, then
maybe you haven’t picked the
right option
technology

29. Sometimes the current set of
features and value proposition
point to a certain technological
solution. However, when you think
about future potential paths of the
app, it might need to include some
features that are not available in
the chosen platform.
One example could be a video app
that in the future may need to technology
include higher interactions with low
level APIs of the phones to optimize
video streaming. If this app started
as a hybrid solution, this future
vision of the app can potentially be
very challenging.

30. What are the pros of the
chosen platform as opposed
to the other options?
technology

31. What are the cons of the chosen
technology
platform as opposed to the
other options?

32. Checklist to use The Product Canvas
• Interview the client without showing the canvas,
get as much information as possible for each set
of questions
• Summarize the answers into the post-its
• Validate the canvas with client
• Present it to the entire team
• Print it and use it as a kanban, keep it visible to
everyone in the team throughout the project
• Update it whenever necessary
• Iterate!

33. people
objectives
Who are they?
Main user types
(personas)
(one post-it per
user)
This app should
IMPORTANT
Be creative: use extra elements,
be:
DATES:
The most • <awesome>
important • <cool>
indirect gains for • <easy to
use>
backgrounds, arrows, connections,
the business?
icons, whatever makes this a great
technology
strategy
communication tool!

34. Thanks!
if you are interested in seeing real cases
of the product canvas, drop me a line
cyrillo@ciandt.com
@cyrillo
@uxmindset
www.ciandt.com
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