Balanced Team: Breaking the speed limit

make it betterprepared for agile experience design & balanced team
Breaking the speed limit
How we leveraged a balanced team to help a 161 year old  
accounting company innovate
breaking the speed limit tweet @gophilosophie

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Who are these people on stage?
prepared for agile experience design & balanced team
Emerson Taymor
Founder / Product
Brooke Kao
Product Designer
Michael Morrissey
Software Engineer

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What’s to come
Who We Are
The Problem
The Team
Stories
Results
Takeaways

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Who We Are

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Philosophie helps companies
design and build better
software by focusing on the
users and humanizing the
process.

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The Problem

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“Software is eating
the world.”
 
— Marc Andreessen

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“In 15 years, 75% of the S&P 500
will be replaced by new companies.”
 
— Richard Foster, Yale University

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How do you disrupt a  
multi-billion dollar  
consulting business?

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Uber-ification of Consulting
Fortune 500
SMBs

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75,000 - 80,000
small businesses in the US
will go out of business in 2015

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77% are profitable in the year
they go out of business

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What if we could help these
businesses manage their  
cash flow better?

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Welcome to BusinessOS

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Over 3 years of research and
“prototyping”

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6 weeks to build a product
with some validation

Team Makeup
• Product Owner
• Marketing x2
• Consultants x3
• Partnerships
• Compliance
• Air Cover
• Product Strategist x2
• Product Designer x2
• Software Engineers x3

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Story: Kickoff

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a4 Years of Knowledge Distilled in 2 Days

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aLean Canvas

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aStoryboard

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aStorymap

Post-its; Sharpies; Dots; Oh My!

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Digitization Station

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Key Takeaways

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• Get everyone in the same room & participating in collaborative
exercises to quickly align teams.
• Lean Canvas is a great tool to rally around a collective vision.
• Individual (time-boxed) diverging and then converging with dot voting
helps gain consensus.
• Digitize & consistently refer to design artifacts. This lets those who
weren’t in the room feel involved and up-to-date.
…To Be Applied to Almost Anything

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Story: Personas

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How do we approach design at
Philosophie?

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Focus on the user and the
problem she has.

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Who is Jen?

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How did we learn about Jen?

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aEmpathy Mapping

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What do we want to
learn from Jen?

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aConversation Planning

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Design doesn’t
happen in here.

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Who else had a stake?

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Stakeholder Persona
A PWC Partner determined to
transform the firm’s growth
and future
Mike

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Stakeholder Persona
A PWC Compliance manager
determined to win the fight
against risk
Todd

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…Unite under a common cause: the user
• A provisional persona is a springboard for customer conversations.
Use her to validate the problem you want to solve.
• Always have the persona in mind when making project decisions. Use
her name in design artifacts and stick to them.
• Getting buy-in from stakeholders and clients is not something that
happens overnight. Stakeholders personas were an important client
asset to keep everyone mindful about other important project goals
and challenges.

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Story: User Testing

Build
Learn Measure

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“There’s nothing better than
watching someone use the software
you’re making, or at least stumble
through trying to use it.”
 
— Susan Robertson

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How did we get everyone
involved?

Stick to the Script!

The Interviewer
(Strategist)
The Notetaker
(Designer)
The Observer
(Client)

The Interviewer
(Client)
The Notetaker
(Designer)
The Observer
(Engineer)

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Did you find value in Business OS?
–Boris Lipsman
“It's hard thus far to have expectations without a clear
understanding of what value the app delivers to the user. What
else can I use it for?”
–Sonya Webb
“It just seems like another reminder app.”
–Leigh Henley
“I logged in today and it continued to give me the same advice
about my overdue invoice but it didn't give me an option to let it
know if I had taken those actions.”

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Customer Landscape is Diverse
and Huge

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How Did Our User Recruits Fit Our Persona?
Persona Match
GREAT
Persona Match
BAD
Persona Match
NEUTRAL

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How Did Our Subjects Rate The App?
0.75 visits per day
4 invoices entered total
2.25 invoices marked paid total
0.52 visits per day
3.33 invoices entered total
1 invoice marked paid total
Persona Match Persona Mismatch
Average Rating Average Rating

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Emerging Customer Segments
Quickbooks Professional
Serge, Leigh
Experienced professional
Clear dialogue and understanding with clients
Experience handling and collecting late payments
Looking for a QB replacement
Wants details/information about their clients
PAIN POINTS
?

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Emerging Customer Segments
Savvy Business Owner
Boris
Owner of a small business (3-10 employees)
Has rapidly changing needs, clients, and employees
Very tech savvy and always looking for the next best option
Looking for a business operations solution
PAIN POINTS
Key goal is growing/expanding his business
?

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Meet Olivia

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Revised Persona: Olivia
Details
Pain PointsActivities
“I feel my best when my
businesses’ financial
chores are automated and
mobile, so I can focus on
serving my clients.”
- Lives & works in LA
- 30 years old, making $88,000
- Freelance web designer with 3 large clients
and ~20 small or individual clients.
- Tracks invoices manually and in excel
- Is a passive power user of business apps -
consistently enables push notifications for
banking and finance apps.
- Likely to talk with clients over text
- Expects to carry out complex financial
chores in mobile apps, on the go.
- Wants to know how and when to be firm
toward a late payer, but also has her own
techniques.

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…and More
James’ accounts payable manager
Wendy
Sam’s major client
James
The savvy business owner
Sam

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• Creating a tight testing script controls variables, minimizes subjectivity
and lowers the barrier to entry for a team.
• Expose the client to the users directly. Dispel egos and speculation
with real data and feedback.
• Testing is a pivotal moment in getting client buy-in and trust. If
people didn’t know who Jen was, they definitely knew Olivia.
…Break down the status quo:
color inside the lines

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Story: Dev Architecture

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“Clients should
witness customer
conversations. It’s
f*cking mindblowing”
 
— Some Guy
Me :)

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“Clients should
witness customer
 
— Some Guy
Me :(

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“Clients should
witness customer
 
— Some Guy
I Totally Know How This All Works. I Swear.

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“Clients should
witness customer
 
— Some Guy
What Have I Done.
Not pictured: rest of team wrapped up, some eaten

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How do we we make our code
base accessible to the whole
team?

Make Architecture Decisions Early

Provide a Solid Entry Point

Let’s Learn React Native Together

Can You Check Out My PR

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• Think about the team when making architecture decision.
• Provide a clear entry point for the rest of the team.
• Be inclusive and share knowledge.
…To Be Applied to Almost Anything

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Results

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6 Weeks Later

A Working App

37 User Tests (including 7 Diary Studies)

A Big Compliance Win

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aTrained an Offshore Team in Shanghai on
Design Thinking & Agile Best Practices

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Using Balanced Team principles
we were able to ship quickly
within a large enterprise.

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Collaborating in the same room
& using democratic techniques
quickly aligns the team.

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Personas are your friend. Use
them religiously, but don’t be
afraid to change them.

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Stakeholder personas help
differentiate stories that are
critical for business success.

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Run consistent user tests and
involve as many team members
as possible in the process.

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Think about the entire team
when making architecture
decisions. And iterate!

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Move fast. Talk as much as
possible. Have fun. Share
Knowledge. Win!

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Questions?
bit.ly/bt-dot-vote

Balanced Team: Breaking the speed limit

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