leanux is a useful f*&king lie

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 Research HOW MUCH RESEARCH?

Lots  

People  

Insights  

12  

Lots  

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

Prototyping and Testing

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