1000 words

1000 Words: Illustrating Project Challenges with Visuals

Tarang Baxi Chirag Doshi @gnarat @chiragsdoshi

Inspiration

Quick Poll

What type of Pen are you?

The Visual Thinking Process

Let’s get our feet wet!

Story # Estimated Size (points) Cycle Time (days)

US003 1 1 US006 1 6.5 US010 1 2 US015 1 2.5 US016 1 1.5 US020 1 3 US004 2 2.5 US005 2 3 US009 2 1.5 US012 2 3 US014 2 3 US017 2 2 US002 3 3.5 US008 3 8 US013 3 3 US018 3 5.5 US001 5 12 US007 5 15 US011 5 9 US019 5 6

Size v/s Avg Cycle Time

Size v/s Cycle Time

Lets practice some drawing

The 6 Ways to See

The 6 Ways to Show

Now we really get our hands

dirty!

The Project •  Building a new product for an early-stage

startup in the medical sciences field

•  Product expected to be redefine the patient health record space with its visually rich UX

•  Will be launched 8 months after project start at the industry’s biggest trade show

Trade-off Sliders

Most  Negotiable Least  Negotiable

Extensibility

UX  Richness

Time

Cost

Scope  –  Internal  users

1

2

3

6

5

Scope  –  External  users 4

The Situation •  3 months since project start – things

not going well

•  Scope is growing rapidly

o Most of the scope allowance built into the plan is already used up

•  Release date likely to slip by 6-8 weeks

Your Task •  Create a set of compelling visuals that

you can take to a critical discussion with client stakeholders

•  Highlight: o  Reasons for the risk to the release date

o Available trade-offs to bring the project back on track

Exercise 1

Iteration Scope Added (points)

It-1 0

It-2 1

It-3 3

It-4 4

It-5 6

It-6 3

It-7 8

Scope Growth Trend

Additional inputs from the team

•  A couple of high value features are undergoing most scope churn as the CEO and CMO see working versions of those features

•  On several features, the effort needed to implement a rich UI is turning out to be much higher than expected.

•  Also some new features are being added to release backlog on a weekly basis, as thinking about the product evolves

Some sample visuals