WILL EVANS Design Thinker-in-Residence NYU
Stern School of Management Will.Evans@PraxisFlow.com @semanticwill

"My propositions serve as elucidations
in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them - as steps - to climb beyond them. He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.” - Wittgenstein

“All models are lies, but
some models are skillful.”

TRADITIONAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

TRADITIONAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

WHAT IS LEAN STARTUP? A
post-positivist apologetics of a “movement”

The problem with many startups
is that you spend months or years doing research, writing requirements, designing and building software… and discover no customer or user cares.

It Started With a Question
If startups fail from a lack of customers not product development failure… Then why do we have: • A process for product development? • No process for customer development?

“A Startup is a human
institution designed to deliver a product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty” – Eric Ries

“Waste is any human activity
which absorbs resources, but creates no value.” - James P Womak and Daniel T. Jones, Lean Thinking

Over the past 35 years,
design & development, much like Waterfall*, accumulated a lot of wasteful, time- consuming, CYA practices that delivered no discernable value to the business or to customers.

Zach Nies

LEAN STARTUP LIFECYCLE

LEAN STARTUP BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS

GOOB (GET OUT OF THE
BUILDING) Hypotheses, Not Requirements Focus on Learning (innovation accounting) Use Iterative Design & Testing Validating before Scale Small Batches = Less Risk CORE LEAN STARTUP CONCEPTS

Your team should maximize for:
LEARNING FOCUS While Minimizing: CYCLE TIME

1. Most teams don't start
with a customer hypothesis; they work backwards from a solution hypothesis. 2. Because teams start with a solution hypothesis, it's almost impossible for them to generate multiple hypotheses for testing. 3. GOOB, when done poorly, is particularly prone to confirmation bias 4. Formulating hypotheses & stating assumptions is hard. 5. Designing reliable experiments is a skill that takes time to learn 6. There is little focus on the organization / value stream 7. It is “ahistorical” meaning little knowledge of it’s own past DECONSTRUCTING LEAN STARTUP

Lean*UX
#WTF?

By Lean*UX most people really
mean “UX in the context of the Lean Startup Method” Term coined by Janice Fraser, Founder of LUXR

WHAT is LEANUX?

LEAN UX CYCLE

FUNDAMENTALS OF LEAN UX •
Balanced, Cross-functional team • Externalize (visualize) process • Flow: Think > Make > Check • Research to understand Customer/Problem Space • No proxies between customers and team • Collaborative Sense-making • Generative Ideation: It’s about optionality • Formulate many small experiments and measure outcome

Your team should maximize for:
LEARNING FOCUS While Minimizing: CYCLE TIME

• Customer Exploration • Problem
Exploration • Solution Exploration • Iteration & Scaling LEANUX PROCESS Let’s unpack what this looks like…

BASICS OF CUSTOMER EXPLORATION

UX MANTRA Mantra: You are
not the customer. Only through research can we uncover people’s pains, needs, and goals, in their context.

Background

WHY RESEARCH? Insights about an
industry, market, or customer segment were never discovered sitting on your fucking couch.

MALKOVICH BIAS The tendency to
believe that everyone uses technology the same way you do. - Andres Glusman

Customer ResearchHOW MUCH RESEARCH? Lot
s People Insights

12 Lot s
People Insights A RESEARCH HEURISTIC

THE RESEARCH INSIGHT DESPAIR CURVE

• Most teams practicing Lean
Startup don't start with a customer hypothesis; they work backwards from a solution hypothesis • Because teams start with a solution hypothesis, it's almost impossible for them to generate multiple hypotheses for testing • GOOB, when done poorly, is particularly prone to confirmation bias • Most teams have trouble formulating hypotheses & identifying assumptions • Designing reliable experiments is a skill that takes time to learn • People new to customer research are really bad at listening for weak signals • When a customer interview is guided, it almost never provides opportunity for serendipitous insights to emerge Problems with Lean Startup

• Customer Exploration • Problem
Exploration • Solution Exploration • Iteration & Scaling LEANUX PROCESS

How do we make sense
of the world so that we can make decisions and act?

A BERRYPICKING MODEL OF LEAN
STARTUP

PROBLEM FRAMING

4 W PROBLEM EXPLORATION

§ Who § What §
Why § Where 4W Exploration

Who Who has this problem?
Is it your customer? Have you validated that the problem is real? Can you prove it?

What What is the nature
of the problem? Can you explain it simply? How do you know it’s a problem? What is the evidence to support the problem?

Why do you believe it
is a problem worth solving? Is it an acute problem for the customer? How acute? Why

Where does this problem arise?
In which context does the customer experience the problem? Have you observed the problem in context? Can you describe that context? Where

By yourself - write out
on post-its at least 2 • Who • What • Why • Where 4W Exploration – 10 min

As a team, present all
post-its onto a blank sheet of large paper, discuss all 4 Ws people presented, take note of duplicates. • Which 2 are most revealing • Which 2 are most relevant to your customer on your empathy map? Use dot-voting 4W Exploration – Synthesis– 20 minutes

Now, after reviewing the 4W
Canvas, please write out at least a paragraph describing the problem as a problem statement. Make sure to be explicit about the Who, What, Why, Where. Problem Statement – 10 minutes

Each team member present their
problem statement. Dot vote on the 1 strongest problem (or combine them). Team must present a single problem statement to the entire group Synthesis – 10 minutes

Every team select one person.
Stand Up and read problem statement. Place on flip chart at front of the room. PRESENT

CYNEFIN

The place of your multiple
belongings

CYNEFIN

• Customer Exploration • Problem
Exploration • Solution Exploration • Iteration & Scaling LEANUX PROCESS

SOLUTION IDEATION

EXPLOITATION vs EXPLORATION

CREATE
PITCH
CRITIQUE

Generate lots of design concepts
(options*) Present concept as stories Critique using Ritual Dissent Integrate (steal) & Iterate Check stories for coherence Converge around testable solution hypotheses Design Studio *See Chris Matts Real Options Theory

• Customer Exploration • Problem
Exploration • Solution Exploration • Iteration & Scaling LEANUX PROCESS

ITERATE & SCALE

WHY PROTOTYPE? • Explore • Quickly create
testable solution options • Identifies problems before they’re coded • Reflection-in-action* • Experiment • Early frequent feedback from customers • Low opportunity cost • Evolve understanding of customer behaviors * Theory in Pracice, Chris Argyris & Donald Schön

WHAT FIDELITY? • Low fidelity • Paper
• Medium fidelity • Axure • Omnigraffle • Indigo Studio • Clickable Wireframes • High Fidelity • Twitter Bootstrap • jQueryUI • Zurb Foundation Beware of “endowment effect,” also called the divestiture aversion. Once people invest time/effort “sketching with code,” its very difficult to throw the concept away and explore new options.” Identify what you want to learn, pick the least effort to go through Build > Measure > Learn

LEANUX PRINCIPLES • Discover customer
problems through research • Cross-functional collaboration • Visualize the work • Invalidate assumptions • Generate many problem options • Collaborative solutioning • Validation before scaling

THE LEANUX KATA • Who
is the customer? • What is their problem? • What do you know and how do you know it? • What are your assumptions? How will you test them? • What have you learned and what should you learn next? • What is your very next experiment? How will you measure it?

LEAN THINKING

LEAN PRINCIPLES • Identify Customers
& Value • Map the Value Stream • Create Flow by Eliminating Waste • Respond to Customer Pull • Continuously Improve

PURPOSE, PROCESS, PEOPLE • Purpose:
What is our organizations purpose? Who is our customer? What is the value? Where is the target? • Process: How will the organization assess each major value stream to make sure we’re maximizing optionality while decreasing waste? • People: How do we empower people to own the process, own the work, and be constantly learning? How can everyone touching the value stream be actively engaged in operating it correctly and continually improving it?

LEANUX MANAGEMENT “Lean UX management
is not about experts providing answers, or aligning “resources” to a strategic vision. It’s about providing a system of constraints for people to ask the right questions, find purpose in their work, and be empowered to make decisions and constantly learn & improve through experimentation and failure.”

WILL EVANS Design Thinker-in-Residence NYU
Stern School of Management Will.Evans@PraxisFlow.com @semanticwill