Collaboration: The Key to Unlocking Innovation, Agile Development and the Best of e-Commerce

Angela Vinci

Director, Product Management

Gap Inc

San Francisco CA USA

Angela_Vinci@gap.com

Agenda

• Product Development Lifecycle• Identifying Needs

• Developing Solutions

• Launching & Learning

• Toolkit of Innovation Techniques • Generating Ideas

• Evaluating Ideas

• Rapid Prototyping

• Testing and Iterating

• Move It or Lose It

• Checklist

Product Lifecycle And Innovation

• What We’ll Discuss Today• The software product development lifecycle

• Innovation techniques and process that apply to software development but that can easily be used in other areas

• What We Won’t Cover• The technical side of agile development

• The software release process itself

• Financial modeling and business case development processes

Product Development Lifecycle

Identifying Needs

Developing Solutions

Launching & Learning

Product Owners & Customers

Ideation

Evaluation

Project Team Members & Customers

Prioritize

Iterate

Project Team & Stakeholders

Product Release

Report Results

GENERATING & EVALUATING IDEAS

IDENTIFYING NEEDS

Generating Ideas: What problem am I solving for my customer?

• Always look for needs through standard sources like:

• Competitive Analysis

• Sales Data

• Customer Feedback through Surveys

• Formal Customer Research

• Uncover more innovative ideas through customer collaboration by:

• Conducting Interviews

• Observing Compensating Behaviors

• Creating a Community and Inviting Participation

• Collaborative Brainstorming

Universality Example: Identifying a Customer Need

• Customer Behavior: Purchase data showed us customers often placed an order on one of our sites then immediately came back and placed a second order on another of our sites

• Customer Feedback: Daily comments in our post-checkout survey told us customers wanted an easier and cheaper way to shop across more than one of our brands

• Competitive Landscape: We knew our customers always shopped from many brands, including multiple brands in our family

Universality Example: Generating Ideas

• Based on the data we knew we had to create a more integrated experience

• We needed to determine specifically what we were solving for

• Early ideas included:• “Pop-up” shops to allow for easier family shopping at key times

like back-to-school and the holiday season

• Cross-brand outfits offered on our individual sites

Integrated Outfit

Prototype for Integrated

Outfit

Evaluating Ideas: What to Test and When to Test It

• Determine the viability of ideas through testing and collaboration with your customer

• Start as broadly as possible

• Let your customer tell you what they need, not the other way around

• Don’t be afraid to be wrong

• Test—Then Invest

Themed Portal

Prototype for Themed

Portal

Universality Example: Testing & Customer Collaboration

• Customer research sessions we set-up with goal of determining what our customers valued and were trying to accomplish

• What we saw was:• Interest and enthusiasm is strong for the concept

• Many customers were able to brainstorm key features unprompted (Video)

• The most compelling feature by far was the universal shopping cart and in particular, the cross brand shipping benefit

Universality Example: Idea Evaluation

14

Feature Gap/ON

Importance

BR

Importance

One shopping cart/transaction High High

Cross Brand Free shipping threshold High High

Universal account information and sign in High High

Navigation tabs Medium-high Medium

Ability to shop categories across brands Medium-high Medium

Search multiple brands Medium-high Medium

Integrate Piperlime w/outfits or items Medium Medium-high

Integrate Piperlime w/in shoe section Medium Medium-high

Outfits that integrate brands Medium Low

One box delivery Low Low

Themed portal Low Low

Non-merchandise related editorial Low Low

LEVERAGING THE POWER OF AGILE

DEVELOPING SOLUTIONS

Prioritizing Features: Project Team Collaboration

• In order to ensure the highest value work happens first it is critical that everyone on the team knows both the project and iteration goals

• Product owners should articulate themes and business goals for each phase of the project

• Architects or Technical Managers should do the same for technical goals

Universality Example: Project Team CollaborationBusiness

Packages Slice Description Jun-07 Jul-07 Aug-07 Sep-07 Oct-07 Nov-07 Dec-07 Jan-08 Feb-08 Mar-08 Apr-08 May-08

1. Sister Links - independent

aesthetic

2. BRONG sites accept

BRONG SVCs

3. For all new site (and call

center) registrants, create a

universal account

4. For all current site (and call

center) registrants, elevate to

a universal account

5. Global Session Lite

(recognition and link-based

prefs)

6. Introduce PLOL SVC

- all sites accept all SVCs

7. Normalize Invoice

8. Cross brand promos: PPC

Setup

9. Cross-brand shopping bag,

checkout, order status, call

center order entry

10. Single fulfillment for

BRONG packages

11. Cross brand promos: PPC

Runtime

12. True Global Session and

Single Sign-on

13. Normalize Shipping

Options

14. Sister Tabs - integrated

aesthetic

Packag

e 1

Packag

e 2

Packag

e 3

Packag

e 4

Managing Iterative Development

• In order to ensure iterative development can proceed smoothly it is important to foster collaboration within the team

• Joint planning sessions which include the product owner, developers and QA

• Maintain a consistent iteration cycle including planning meeting and other administrative tasks

• Use the tools you need—but no more than what you need

• Believe the burn-up

Universality Example: Project Team Collaboration

RESULTS DRIVEN ACTION

LAUNCHING AND LEARNING

Results Matter: There’s No Such Thing as Bad Information

• Begin With The End• Create your full report as part of the project’s inception

• Mock-up all reports needed

• Enabling Your Measurements• Always include reporting in the core requirements

• Develop and release reporting and metrics with individual features

• Use Your Data• Start reporting out what you learn with each release

• Leverage data and information gained during the project to prioritize, change or stop remaining development work

• Consider additional user testing after features are released

Universality Example: Results Matter Customer Collaboration

INNOVATION TOOLKIT

What To Use. When To Use It.

Idea Generation: Sources of Information & Inspiration

Idea Generation: Key Questions to Answer

• What unmet need are we solving

• Are we offering something new

• Have we identified the true competition

• Does our solution delight but not overshoot

• Is this idea viable

• Is there financial value

Idea Evaluation: Scoring Process

• For ideas where no historical data or comparable experience exists determine what assumption would need to hold true to achieve success

• Develop a test plan for each assumption

• Score each assumption based on your degree of confidence and the risk if you’re wrong

• Test the assumptions with the highest scores first

Example: Assumption Scorecard

Rapid Prototyping: When Good Enough Is Much Better Than Good

• Key Questions Only

• Determine What You Really Need

• Make It—Fast!

Example: Lo-Fi Prototype Round 1

• Low investments yield highly valuable information

Round 1 Video LINK (25 second mark)

Test & Iterate

• Test Plan Per Assumption

• Low Amount of Investment=High Amount of Learning

• Learn It—Don’t Love It (Yet)

Example: Test & Iterate Prototype #2

Move It or Lose It: What to Keep and What to Lose

• It is critically important to change or abandon ideas which don’t hold up to assumption-based testing

• If your customers don’t understand or can’t use what you’re offering you haven’t solved their problem, so move on to something that will

• Use iterative testing to learn—not to sell your idea

• Getting rid of a bad idea early is a success

Example: What to Lose

“Gets Old” Testing Video: LINK

Example: What to Keep

34

Round 3 Testing Video LINK

Example: What to Keep—Moving Opportunities Forward

Confidential - Do Not Distribute or Copy

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Toolkit Checklist

Phase Goal Tools

Identifying Needs Uncover unmet customer

needs

Research

Customer Feedback

Observation

Idea Generation Generate broad range of

solutions

Collaborative Brainstorming

Community Creation

Idea Evaluation Identify key assumptions

Rank Assumptions

Assumption List

Scorecard

Iterative Testing Validate assumptions Lo-Fi Prototypes

Interviews

Idea Progression Refine/Change/Eliminate

Ideas

Progressive Testing

Launch Cost-appropriate Launch Plan Low-investment Strategies

Monitor Get Customer Feedback Customer Feedback

Data Collection

Observation

Measure Validate progress against

stated goals

Reporting

MERCI BEAUCOUP!

QUESTIONS?