Collaboration, les clés pour lever les freins à l'innovation Angela Vinci

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. Product Development Lifecycle
Identifying Developing Launching
Needs Solutions & Learning
Product Owners & Project Team Members Project Team &
Customers & Customers Stakeholders
Product
Ideation Prioritize
Release
Report
Evaluation Iterate
Results

5. IDENTIFYING NEEDS
GENERATING & EVALUATING
IDEAS

6. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. Integrated Outfit
Prototype for
Integrated
Outfit

11. 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

12. Themed Portal
Prototype for
Themed
Portal

13. 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

14. Universality Example: Idea Evaluation
Feature Gap/ON BR
Importance 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
14

15. DEVELOPING SOLUTIONS
LEVERAGING THE POWER OF
AGILE

16. 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

17. Universality Example: Project Team
Collaboration
Business
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
Packages
1. Sister Links - independent
aesthetic
Package 1
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
Package 2
a universal account
5. Global Session Lite
(recognition and link-based
prefs)
6. Introduce PLOL SVC
- all sites accept all SVCs
7. Normalize Invoice
Package 3
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
Package 4
14. Sister Tabs - integrated
aesthetic

18. 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

19. Universality Example: Project Team
Collaboration

20. LAUNCHING AND LEARNING
RESULTS DRIVEN ACTION

21. 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

22. Universality Example: Results Matter
Customer Collaboration

23. What To Use. When To Use It.
INNOVATION TOOLKIT

24. Idea Generation: Sources of Information
& Inspiration

25. 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

26. 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

27. Example: Assumption Scorecard

28. Rapid Prototyping: When Good Enough
Is Much Better Than Good
• Key Questions Only
• Determine What You Really Need
• Make It—Fast!

29. Example: Lo-Fi Prototype Round 1
• Low investments
yield highly valuable
information
Round 1 Video LINK (25 second mark)

30. Test & Iterate
• Test Plan Per Assumption
• Low Amount of Investment=High Amount of
Learning
• Learn It—Don’t Love It (Yet)

31. Example: Test & Iterate Prototype #2

32. 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

33. Example: What to Lose
“Gets Old” Testing Video: LINK

34. Example: What to Keep
Round 3 Testing Video LINK
3

35. Example: What to Keep—Moving
Opportunities Forward
Confidential - Do Not Distribute 3

36. Toolkit Checklist
Phase Goal Tools
Identifying Needs Uncover unmet customer Research
needs Customer Feedback
Observation
Idea Generation Generate broad range of Collaborative Brainstorming
solutions Community Creation
Idea Evaluation Identify key assumptions Assumption List
Rank Assumptions Scorecard
Iterative Testing Validate assumptions Lo-Fi Prototypes
Interviews
Idea Progression Refine/Change/Eliminate Progressive Testing
Ideas
Launch Cost-appropriate Launch Plan Low-investment Strategies
Monitor Get Customer Feedback Customer Feedback
Data Collection
Observation
Measure Validate progress against Reporting
stated goals

37. QUESTIONS?
MERCI BEAUCOUP!