Agile Inception using Innovative and Collaborative techniques & Gamification came for rescue, But now this is also diluted a lot and becoming in-effective. But used well, this is highly effective even to discover more than what we are focusing and help channel the investments for the clients. We took a real world problem that is meaningful to all attendees and used the following techniques as a real inception – Describing the objectives of inception and inception outcomes – Setting the vision – Identify Competing constraints and decouple them – Understand nuances of client relationship and being dynamic in modelling the solution – Stakeholder mapping and communication plan – Assumption mapping and hypotheses prioritisation – Traceability of user needs to business goals through impact mapping.

1. “A Job well begun: A job half done”
Agile Inception strategies
Khaarthigha Subramanian

2. Experience on Inception?
• Experience on inception?
• When do you do during Inception?
• What are the outcomes?
• What all it comprises of?
• Challenges
• Do’s ( & donts)

3. Outline
● Intro on Inception
● Pre-Inception phase
○ Preparation
○ Team Formation
● During-Inception phase items
○ Inception Essentials
○ Tools & techniques
○ Challenges
○ Solving techniques
○ Handle uncertainty & ambiguity
● Post-Inception phase

4. Intro to Inception
The Inception phase is about determining whether or not to proceed
with the project.
○ In an agile world, we attempt to start a project with a minimal
understanding of the overall project size and scope. This avoids
the heavy-duty up front design and analysis. The drawback is
that the full scope of the project may not be fully understood.
Our solution is to use this inception to define the project.
○ Artifacts created during the Inception phase should help
determine if the project should procede to Initiation, identify and
Managing Risk associated with the project, or provide supporting
details to allow the project to commence.

5. Why we need Inception?
○ Evaluates the feasibility of a project
○ Evaluates significantrisks and issues and constraints
○ Client-context & Readiness to start the project
○ Evaluates scope, schedule, size of project, delivery approaches

6. Pre-Inception

7. • Logistics & forming Inception team
• Expected outputs and outcomes
• Understand the client Context -> What are they trying to achieve?
• Awareness on the industry
• Gather the info – market research, competitors
• Just a brief analysis on competitors
• Planning the agenda and Schedule
• Availability of stakeholders required
• Expectations from client stakeholders
• Share the goals and align on outcomes
• Incorporating the time for huddle & Consolidation
• Execution strategy
Inception Preparation Essentials

8. The Business
If it wasn’t already covered in Sponsor Speaks (or prior to
the Inception):
What does the business do?
What do they sell?
Who are their customers (high level)?
How big are they, where are they?
What is their culture like?

9. Typical Activities
Inception
Discover Envision Define
Where are they now?
• User research
• Market Landscape
• Technical Discovery
• Current reality
• Site performance
• Brand context
Where do I want to go?
• Product ideation
• Rapid prototyping
• User testing
• Brand Strategy
Development
• Content Strategy
Development
• Competitor Analysis
How do they get there?
• Ensure common
understanding of vision
• Decide on archtectural
approach
• Develop a release plan

10. INCEPTION GOALS - EXAMPLE
● Understand the problem and business context
● Determine how software can solve the problem
● Share an understanding of the scope
● Define a candidate architecture
● Develop a credible plan
● Build relationships

11. Understand the Client

12. Inception -
“Levers for Success”
Pre- Inception
Business &
Project Context
Product
Solutioning
Potential
risks &
challenges
Roadmap
& Plan

13. Multi dimensional challenges
Going fast /deep on one
direction of the problem
( knowingly or
unknowingly) without
understanding holistic
picture
Conventional / hierarchy org
structure -> hinders in
meeting right stakeholders
Blocked – caught in
ambiguity
Blocked because of lack
of information
Multiple answers for the
same question
Availability becoming issues
Eg: User research
Client -> expects solution
for multiple problems
(beyond the focus)
Vision and larger
Business context not
discussed -> leading to
working on wrong
problem
Personality conflicts.
People of different
mindset

14. Techniques could be..
Go deeper on identified objective/ problem
area
Understand the Business context and
holistic picture
Being Visual and pictorial in
discussions and exercises
Coherence of thoughts,
inputs from stakeholders
Collaboration, team work and
alignment
Facilitation

15. Facilitation over Orchestration
• Why Facilitation is essential?
• To break the silos
• Help everyone co-work easily -
Share and align on the context
• We can discover much more
through informal conversations (for
eg: what other business cases are
present, Was there any past
attempts ? )
• What does Facilitation imply: It is:
• Part referee
• Part manager
• Part teacher
• Part therapist
• Being & bring Energy
• Being very dynamic -> to abandon your
approach if it’s not working
• Different ways of execution (alternatives)
• Quick thinker & adapter
• How it can be done effectively?
- Understand and Listen to other’s thought
- Provoke a thought and discussion knows
- When to re-channel a discussion for some other
discussion
- Time sensitive
- Pulling the forum when on tangential direction

16. Understanding the holistic picture - Vision
● Before understanding the user’s business problem, we need to identify their drivers and objectives
● Usually, it is more than one problem that the users face at a time
● The result of our understanding the user’s business problem is essential in driving the discussion
forward
● The objective here is not to jump in to a solution, but to understand their problem to the core.
What direction do they see their business heading in?
What thinking have they done about how to solve their problem?
Who are their competitors? And who are their customers and what market space they want to
be in?
Tools used: Futurespective
Or Elevator picth
If its Product , (product sponsors)
-> Value Prop canvas, empathy

17. Identify the right & immediate problem statement
What do they perceive as their problem or
opportunity?
What prior info/stats do they have to support
this?
Business/
Project Context
Story
Discovery
Technical
Solutioning
Estimation
and Planning
User research
Site statistics
Competitive position
Market landscape

18. Drivers & Trade-offs
• Return on
Investment (ROI)
• Capacity building
• Process
Automation
• Investor wealth
maximization
Business
Objectives
• Meeting Business
objectives
• In-time and in-
scope delivery
• Process
automation and
optimization
• Minimal
maintenance
efforts
Project Goals
Drivers
Trade offs

19. Business &
Project Context
Technical
Solutioning
Estimation
and Planning
Product
Solutioning
Pre- Inception
Capturing the Vision
Elevator Pitch: Identifies target customer, need and
objectives in a 30 second statement

20. Example Vision
Manheim has lost 10% digital market share in a fast growing digital
market
Dealers trade 6 million cars today using cell phones & faxes-Manheim
isn’t involved
Cox should develop a social wholesale marketplace that allows dealers to
leverage their existing relationships to buy & sell cars among
themselves: Think Facebook meets OVE
It would give Cox a view of all of the dealer’s inventory & an
opportunity to be involved in all of the transactions
~6 startups are attempting to serve large franchise dealerships with this
model
Key customer segment: major dealers, representing 3.5M+ internal

21. Shared Product Vision - Example
Product in a Box: Imagine <the project> is a product in a box on a supermarket shelf. What
would appear on the box that would appeal to our customers?
Business/
Project Context
Story
Discovery
Technical
Solutioning
Estimation
and Planning
Business &
Project Context
Technical
Solutioning
Estimation
and Planning
Product
Solutioning
Pre- Inception

22. 8/24/17 22
Objectives and Scope
IS IS NOT (but could be)
• [In scope project objectives here] • [Out of scope project objectives here]
UNRESOLVED
• [Unresolved project objectives here]

23. Coherence , Collaboration over Procedures
- Everyone in the team should be aligned
- Even if there are differences of thoughts on execution
- Directions & options in-front of us
- Pulse of the client stakeholders
- Collaborate with the client stakeholders on huddles and
solutioning
- Helps in ensuring the wider aspects to be covered
- Increases the trust across the team and the client
stakeholders

24. Constraints Management
• Identifying the constraints for executing the inception , in solutioning
• Breakdown -> List down the Constraints ,
• Constraints could be form of blockers,
Ø dependencies,
Ø uncertainty,
Ø ambiguity
• Discussing the constraint with
Product/Project Sponsor could
help
• Calling out / putting out the
dependencies, blockers on the
table
• Collectivelyidentifying the
blockers and discussing it openly
• Facilitation is a key to do this

25. Other Facilitation Techniques
Imagine you are selling a
productin a trade-fair. The
productis similar to the one
that we are discussing.
To enable maximum sales,
design a productbox that
would help achieve your goal
The box can contain marketing
slogans,productinformation,
disclaimers,price and product
information
WHAT WOULD YOU
WRITE IN THE PRODUCT
BOX?
There is boatout there and the
faster it moves, the better it is
for you. Think of your project
as a speed-boat.
With the help of post-its
identify what aspects will make
the boat faster
What are the anchors that hold
the boat back reducing its
speed?
WHAT ARE THE FUELAND
THE ANCHORS FOR THE
SPEED_BOAT?
The idea is to understand
which set of features are most
important, similar to how an
optometrist arrives at the
correct set of lenses for a
20/20 vision
Start by writing one feature
each on index cards
Place cards on top of each
other depending on client’s
feedback on what’s most
importantto them
ARRIVE AT A PRIORITIZED
LIST
from Luke Hohman

26. Relationship with the Stakeholders
Know & remember your stakeholders
Primary Stakeholders are those who stand to gain
(or lose) the most from the outcomes
Secondary Stakeholders are those who have the
most influence and stand to gain (or lose) the most
from the outcomes
Key Stakeholders are those who can significantly
influence the outcomes and success of the project

27. Ideation over Interrogation

28. Business &
Project Context
Technical
Solutioning
Estimation
and Planning
Product
Solutioning
Pre- Inception
Relative Priority
http://fabiopereira.me/blog/2009/06/29/principle-of-relative-priority/
All the decisionsaboutitem priority have toinvolveother items
whichare beingtraded in favorof themostimportantone(s).
There isno absolutepriority, onlyrelative to other items.

29. POST INCEPTION

30. Business &
Project Context
Technical
Solutioning
Estimation
and Planning
Product
Solutioning
Pre- Inception
8/24/17 30
Users Existing Systems
New SystemsExternal Systems
Logical Scope
Out of Scope In Scope
User(s)
Out of Scope
System
In Scope System
Out of Scope
System
Out of Scope
System
User(s)

31. Business &
Project Context
Technical
Solutioning
Estimation
and Planning
Product
Solutioning
Pre- Inception
Assembling a Base Plan
Business &
Project Context
Technical
Solutioning
Estimation
and Planning
Product
Solutioning
Pre- Inception

32. Business &
Project Context
Technical
Solutioning
Estimation
and Planning
Product
Solutioning
Pre- Inception
32
Roadmap
2016 2017
Release 1.1
7 Jan 2017
Dev
11 Feb 2017
Release
17 Sept 2016
Dev
22 October 2016
Release
29 April 2017
Dev
3 June 2017
Release
9 Sept 2017
Release
5 August 2017
Deev
Release 2.0 Release 2.1 Release 3.0
7 May 2016
Release
Release 1.0
28 Sept 2016
workshop
1 April 2017
workshop
Today
Business Needs catered to,
Business Benefits
Success metrics

33. THANK YOU
Questions? Feedback?

34. PROBLEM STATEMENT
(as Appendix)

35. Problem Statement
“AllForU” is a retail service provider where
a customer can buy household items. The
CEO, Sundar Pichai is planning to invest for
providing convenient shopping experience
to its customers & their employees to
operate.

36. Julia
Age: 26
Occupation: Real Estate Agent
Earnings: 200000/mth
Frequent Buyer (more than 2 books a month) , buys fashion items and make-up freak
As a Real Estate marketing executive, Julia is constantly on the go juggling multiple clients
at once. She likes to get dressed well for being more perfect and confident to influence
customers. She meets more the corporate clients and in the field of selling office spaces.
At the end of the day she wants nothing more than to go home and relax with a good
book. Julia is always looking for great fantasy novels that she hasn’t read yet and when
she finds a good book she devours it in no time flat. The last thing Julia wants is to go
home and not have a great book waiting for her.
Julia uses a Mac laptop and a Samsung Phone while on the go. However she still prefers
to read her books on dead tree format.

37. Rob
Age: 34
Occupation: Manager – Orders management department
He’s married and he and his wife have recently had their first child (Charlie). Rob has an
hour long commute to work each day via public transit. Rob is always trying to stay one
step ahead of his peers by performing his best in meeting the customer’s need and fulfill
their orders as early as possible. He is very good coordinator with other counterparts
and also a Star Award Winner in his organization as always there are positive feedback
from customers on early fulfillment of their delivery.
Rob uses an Android Phone running the latest version of the OS, at work he use’s
Windows machines Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. At home he prefers to use
Linux. On the office computers he’s limited to IE and Firefox, but at home he uses
Chrome.