Project thinking and digital service business

Nordic Process Days, 10.4.2014Mikko Viikari

Project thinking and digital service business

FuturiceCompany

facts› Digital services agency

› Established in 2000

› 5 locations: London, Berlin, Helsinki, Tampere, Lausanne

› 200+ employees; 30% annual growth

HELSINKITAMPERE

BERLIN

LONDON

200

LAUSANNE

We believe that our values – trust, caring, transparency and continuous improvement – are the key to our happiness cycle that includes happy customers, happy people and happy end-users!

Today, Futurice is the best place to work in Europe!

#1

A few brands we’ve worked with

Digital service?

Service is an intangible commodity. Service is produced and consumed at the same time.

Digital service? Same stuff, but (primarily) using digital channel.

The Clock Rate of Digital

Markets are globalChanges in work

culture

The digital revolution has disrupted traditional ways of

doing business

Competition is global

State of the world, 2014

Project» Ethymology:

› latin proicere, before action.

› In english: ”plan of something”

» By definion project has start, end, goal, plan and budget/resources

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scope

Product or serviceProject

budget

plan

Project thinking has clear benefits» Focuses resources to achieve defined goals

» Abstracts away complexity. Project is an elegant box.

» Everybody knows ”project” and ”project management”. Makes communication and management much easier.

» Clear procedures for investments, decisions and contracts.

» Existing, good models for planning work and tracking progress.

» Project is excellent concept when the problem is somewhat clear and the game is linear.

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Software projects in 2 trad. ways

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Reqs spec Design

BuildDeploy

Maintenance

80% of TCO100% of benefits

We build exactly what was specified, in schedule,and budget! Cool?

Front-end

Agile development project Small-scale development

We released the desired product iteratively, in schedule and budget. Hooray! And we improved based on the user feedback.

Actually a lot of workwas done here.

History of software projects

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» Project failed. (1990, wtrfll)

» Project was a success but the patient died. (2000)

» Project was a success and the customer was rather happy. (2010, agile)

» 2014: ?

So, what is wrong with agile software development, even if applied properly.

» Not that much, agile is a great start, but it...

» often focuses on method, rather than actual goals and results

» and on delivering software, rather than user experience or business impact. Software as such is waste.

» makes you add features and remove bugs, instead of creating a product the users would love (even if they do not know it yet)

» expectations for Product Owner are typically unrealistic

» is an ism and somehow detached from reality.

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What has changed, what is needed?» User Acceptance vs. User Experience. Acceptable user

experience is a loosing strategy in a ”winner takes it all” game.

» Product and marketing are the same. Digital services are more and more about customer development.

» Continuous learning, tweaking, designing and hacking to improve the KPIs.

» You need a smart architecture (micro services and APIs) to be able to change the business direction in agile way.

» Buy (from cloud) or build?

A Critique of Project» Focus on wrong stuff:

› Management focus on ”project”, not ”product”. ”How to fullfil predefined scope within the set limitations. ”

› When we should focus on the product and the customers. What is the best way to add value and learn right now?

» Project time-box is mis-leading abstraction

› Launch is not an end of anything. It is the start for business benefits and (most of the) learning.

› Good service is never 100% completed.

› Project is a fundamentally wrong state of mind. It gives an illusion that we are free after the deadline and delivery.

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…

New approach. Lean Service Creation (LSC)

Continuous learning and hypothesis-driven development.

Continuous development of the service and the customers. Every day.

History of software projects, v2

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» Project failed. (1990, wtrfll)

» Project was a success but the patient died. (2000)

» Project was a success and the customer was rather happy. (2010, agile)

» There was no project but digital business was successful. (2014, LSC)

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What will replace ”agile project” working model?» Continuous development flow. Kanban.

» More ownership: ”You build it, You run it” (Amazon). DevOps.

» No distinction with ”development project” and ”maintenance”

» The slower beat: Service Vision Sprint. Frequent, intensive, fresh analysis and steering method.

» Validated, direct customer and business needs drive and prioritize the development.

» Market mechanisms and intrapreneurship instead of presentation+committee model in making investment decisions.

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6 tips for organising service creation» Build a real cross-functional service creation team: design,

development and marketing.

» Have a proper design, product vision, ”strong centers” and unique value prop, not just a backlog.

» Spend absolute max 50% of your budget pre-launch. Launch is a beginning, not an end.

» Spend 80% of the time on improving existing ”features”, 20% on adding new ones. (ok... depends on the level of competition)

» Validate with real users, verify the business results

» Use Kanban for workflow management

Waste

Speed

20

Mikko Viikari

[email protected]

+358 50 3797 152

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