Presented at SharePoint Saturday Chicago Suburbs, May 2014 by Ruven Gotz and Michelle Caldwell. Learn and experience new tools and techniques that help you get shared understanding with your stakeholders. Without shared understanding, your chances of a successful delivery are very low.

1. Visual Tools & Innovation Games
Getting everyone onto the same page
Ruven Gotz
Avanade
Michelle Caldwell
Avanade

2. SharePoint Saturday Chicago Suburbs 3
Speaker Feedback: SPSCSM.COM

3. Low-tech social network
Draw your AvatarU
Add your name for
the Avatar
“Tag” your AvatarDraw your Avatar
“Upload” your
Avatar

4. DIRECTOR &
REGIONAL LEAD
Michelle Caldwell
Mary.m.caldwell@avanade.com @shellecaldwell shellecaldwell.com

5. DIRECTOR &
REGIONAL LEAD
Ruven Gotz
ruven.gotz@avanade.com @ruveng spinsiders.com/ruveng

6. Agenda
Part 1
• Introduction
• Shared Understanding
• Innovation Games & Visual
Tools
• Soft Skills
• Requirements Gathering
• Bad Meetings
• Envisioning (Cover Story)
• Mapping
Break
Part 2
• Envisioning (IBIS Mapping)
• Analyze (Sailboat)
• Visual Design
• Wireframing
• Wrap Up

7. Make a Connection & Build a Network

8. SHARE 2012 | 9
Shared understanding

9. SHARE 2012 | 10

10. SHARE 2012 | 11

11. SHARE 2012 | 12

12. SHARE 2012 | 13

13. SHARE 2012 | 14
Yes!
A bridge!

14. Odds of
Success?

15. SHARE 2012 | 16
Project
goes?

16. SHARE 2012 | 17
Same
page

17. SHARE 2012 | 18
Wicked
problems

18. Hard
(but tame)
Wicked

19. Guess what
SharePoint is…

20. SHARE 2012 |
Usually a bunch
of people who all
have a different
idea of what
success looks like

21. , won’t talk to each other

22. Machiavelli (not exactly  )
It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult
to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more
dangerous to handle than to initiate a new SharePoint
project; for the project team has enemies in all those
who profit by the old portal, and only lukewarm
defenders in all those who would profit by the new
portal; this lukewarmness arising partly from the
incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in
anything new until they actually have experience of it.

23. Dealing with humans
in tough circumstances

24. Dealing with humans
in tough circumstances

25. SHARE 2012 | 26

26. How do gamestorming & visual
tools help?

27. Involves People

28. Egalitarian & Participatory
• Equal Opportunity to
Participate
• Success Depends on
Everyone get Involved

29. Structured with Goals

30. 31
Time Bound

31. Why they are valuable
• They involve a high level of emotion
• Alternative to traditional meeting format
• Real-time feedback
• Helps you discover the unknown
• Catalyst for consensus building
• Provides structure for Creative Chaos

32. Putting it into action
Excellent facilitation means building your soft skills

33. Soft Skills

34. Confidence

35. Listening

36. Humor

37. Brutal Honesty

38. Requirements Gathering
Visual Tools and Games that can help with analysis

39. Why is it so hard to get good requirements?

40. The chicken and egg problem

41. Requirements

42. What makes something a
requirement?

43. My three rules of SharePoint
1. Simplicity
2. Simplicity
3. Simplicity

44. We can do that for $10

45. We can do that for $1,000,000

46. Too much focus on the detail…
How

47. …and not enough on the destination
Why

48. Roadblock: Bad meetings
Meetings & workshops take time, but are often ineffective

49. The Facts

50. 11million
daily

51. 61.8
meetings/month

52. 50%
unproductive

53. 31
hours wasted

54. The Effects

55. 91%
daydreaming

56. 96%
miss meetings

57. 95%
miss parts of
meetings

58. 73%
bring other work
to meetings

59. 39%
fall asleep

62. Envisioning with Cover Story
Visual Tools and Games that can help with defining
Project Goals and Vision

63. Soooo…………. What is your vision for SharePoint?

64. The object of the game
is to suspend all disbelief and
envision a future state that is
so stellar that it landed your
organization on the cover of a
well-known magazine.

66. Cover:
Tells the story of
your big success

68. Headline:
The Substance of the cover
story

70. Sidebars:
Interesting facts about the
story

72. Quotes:
Quotes from potential end
users of the solution

74. Brainstorm:
Documenting initial ideas
– this is important!

75. Images:
Supporting the
content with
illustrations

77. Wrap Up
At the end of the time period, usually
an hour, get the groups to present
their cover story, essentially their
vision of SharePoint, to the rest of the
groups and then discuss.

78. Game Setup
• Cover Story
Template
• Post-its
• Pens
• tape
•Facilitator (# depends
on size of group
•At least 3 participants
•A Scribe
•Camera (optional)

79. Introduction to Mind Mapping

90. Mapping for Navigation

91. Mapping for Prioritization

92. Mapping for Prioritization

93. Mapping for Scoping

94. 1st Half Wrap Up
Don’t go away, we’ll be back for Part 2
ruven.gotz@avanade.com
spinsiders.com/ruveng
@ruveng
mary.m.caldwell@Avanade.com
shellecaldwell.com
@shellecaldwell

95. Break

96. Welcome to Part 2.
IBIS Mapping
A Grammar for Thinking

97. Two books you must read

98. What are wicked problems? (recap)
• You don’t really understand the problem until
you’ve developed the solution
• You don’t know when you’ve accomplished your goal
• Solutions are not right or wrong, they are just better
or worse
• Every wicked problem is unique
• Every solution to a wicked problem is a one-shot
operation
• You are dealing with social complexity

99. Tools that can help

100. IBIS Notation

101. I use Mind Manager to express the same
notation

106. Dialog mapping to capture argumentation

107. Dialog mapping to capture argumentation

108. Dialog mapping to capture argumentation

109. Dialog mapping to capture argumentation

110. Dialog mapping to capture argumentation

111. Dialog mapping to capture argumentation

112. Dialogue Mapping
for scoping

113. Analyze with Sailboat

114. The object of the game
Gain insight and understanding
into the current state of the
situation

115. How to Play the game
•Draw and/or put up a boat
•Name the boat to represent the focus
area

116. What is
dragging you
down?

118. What can speed you up?

120. Power Dot – Extra Bonus
•Give each participant a fixed # of dots
(time box the activity)
•Ask each participant to “vote” for their
highest priority pains and solutions
•Quickly analyze the results
•Discuss the results as a group

121. How to Play the game
•Analyze voting
•Discuss the results as
a group

122. Game Setup
• A BOAT !
• Post-its (various
colors)
• Pens
• tape
•Facilitator (# depends
on size of group
•At least 3 participants
•A Scribe
•Camera (optional)

123. Visual Design
Card Sorting & Tree Testing

124. What is Card Sorting?

125. “Card sorting is a great, reliable,
inexpensive method for finding patterns
in how users would expect to find
content or functionality.”
- Donna Spencer
http://www.amazon.com/Card-Sorting-ebook/dp/B004VFUOL0

126. What are the types of card sort?
Open & Closed

127. Open card sorting process
Gerbil

128. Results
Gerbil

129. But not always what you expect
Ford
Gerbil

130. But not always what you expect (2)
Ford
Gerbil

131. Analysis
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/analyzing_card_sort_results_
with_a_spreadsheet_template

132. What is Tree Testing?

133. Formally Known as……..
Card-based Classification
Evaluation

134. Step 1 – Create a set of menus based on draft
sitemap

135. Methods for Tree Testing
Paper Or Online

136. Step 2 – Develop Scenarios

137. Creating effective scenarios
• You are planning a vacation and you want to know how
much leave you have left
• You need to book travel for work
• You are filling out a request for time off
• You are looking for a contact email/name for the helpdesk
• You have questions about your benefits

138. Step 3 - Recruit

139. Step 4 - Observe

140. Step 5 - Analyze

141. Step 7 - Repeat Create
Menu
Develop
Scenario
Recruit
Evaluate
Analyze
Repeat &
Optimize

142. Wireframing

143. I used to hate wireframing!

144. A useless wireframe

145. Way too
much work
Erik Swenson

146. Balsamiq:
Just right

147. Simple Wireframe

148. Wrap Up

149. Adapting the low-tech social network

150. Products and Tools Referenced
• Mind Manager www.mindjet.com
• Xmind www.xmind.net
• Balsamiq www.balsamiq.com
• UserZoom www.userzoom.com
• Optimal Workshop www.optimalworkshop.com
• Card sort tools measuringuserexperience.com/CardSorting
• Boxes & Arrows boxesandarrows.com
• Gamestorming (book) www.gogamestorm.com
• Innovation Games www.innovationgames.com
• Dialogue Mapping cognexus.org
Thank You!

151. SharePoint Saturday Chicago Suburbs 153
Speaker Feedback: SPSCSM.COM

152. Stay Connected!
ruven.gotz@avanade.com
spinsiders.com/ruveng
@ruveng
mary.m.caldwell@Avanade.com
shellecaldwell.com
@shellecaldwell

153. Bonus – Collect Feedback
With Prune the Product Tree

154. The object of the game
Identify the kinds of benefits the
targeted groups of users received
from the solution in question

155. How to Play the game
•Red Apples = Expected and got
•Rotten Apples = Expected and didn’t get
•Presents = Unexpected benefits