Can a well-established company that has been around for over a hundred years be lean? Danny Setiawan, Lead UX for mobile at The Economist discusses how we apply the lean methodology to our product development process.

1. Being Lean
at The Economist
How we apply lean methodology to our product development process
Danny Setiawan
UX Lead for Mobile, The Economist
NYC, 24 Feb 2016

2. #LeanAtTheEconomist
Agenda
• Agenda
• Introduction
• How we do Lean
• Challenges
• Your Turn
• Q&A
Image source: flaticon.com

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Introduction
• UX Manager/Lead for Mobile
• Responsible for the UX for all native +
HTML 5 apps
• Previously: UX designer for Yahoo! Finance
Image source: flaticon.com

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“
Lean
Lean is a customer-centric methodology
used to continuously improve any
process through the elimination of waste
in everything you do
- Lean for Dummies

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Learn-Build-Measure Loop

6. How We Learn

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How We Learn: Internal
1. Stakeholder interviews: 1-on-1 conversations with various stakeholders
who can offer insights about our customers (marketing, customer service,
sales, tech support)
2. Analytics: behavioral data from related products
3. Competitive analysis
Things you can start doing without talking to customers

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4. Proto-Persona : define target users
based on internal knowledge
(demographic, behavior, motivation,
scenarios). Document assumptions about
our target customer.
How We Learn: Internal
Proto-personas created by our mobile team

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5.Scenario Storyboard: visualization of
user scenario to reveal limitations and
opportunities
How We Learn: Internal
Storyboard of a morning commute scenario

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How We Learn :External
1.Surveys: quick way to validate persona with
quantifiable data
Validating assumptions with real customers
Survey on iOS app with TypeForm

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How We Learn :External
2.Customer feedback :
consolidated customer feedback
from customer service, App
Store and Google Play Store
reviews
Validating assumptions with real customers
Evernote notebook that enables us to make customer feedback &
reviews sharable and searchable (automated with Zapier)

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How We Learn :External
3. Customer interviews : in-
depth interviews with people
who fit the persona profile to
gather qualitative data to
validate persona
User interview using Google Hangout

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How We Learn :External
4. In-person anecdotal : direct in-person
feedback from customers
Our Product Manager collecting anecdotal
feedback at a local coffee shop

14. How We Build

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How We Build
1. Customer Journey Mapping: high-level
visualization of customer’s experience
Customer journey map created in
workshop session with stakeholders on
Day 1 of Design Sprint

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How We Build
2. 6-8-5: generate 6-8 sketches in 5 minutes
sketches created in 6-8-5 exercise Team + stakeholders sketching together

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How We Build
3. Screen Storyboarding: visualize
user flow in 3 or more screens (as
a progression)
4. Critique: decide on winning idea
as a team
screen storyboard with notes from
critique

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5. Prototyping: simulation of final
product to solicit reaction from users
Quick InVision prototype to test swipe
visual cue
How We Build

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How We Build
6. Story mapping: an exercise to define MVP by
visualizing user flow and its related features
Final story map done using Stormboard

20. How We Measure

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How We Measure
1. Walking Skeleton: a dev build that includes only essential features to
validate the solution with real data
2. Customer feedback
3. Surveys (ie. NPS)
4. Analytics: measure what our users actually do

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Usability Test
5. Usability tests: method of testing our solution’s ease of use
In-person moderated usability test in session Usability test observation room

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Heuristic Evaluation
6. Heuristic Evaluation: expert review of existing product
from Espresso heuristic evaluation

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Challenges
• The Team
• Distributed: US and Europe
• Stretched too thin across multiple
products
• Resource allocation
• Long-term forecasting, hard to
change direction quickly

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Your Turn
• Get to know your customers
• Survey
• Talk to them
• Building a Lean culture
• Build your tribe: Identify and empower your allies
• Small wins: help your colleagues to succeed using Lean method
• Co-creation: include stakeholders in the process to create alignment and
gain support
Practical applications you can apply to your work

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Questions?
email: dannysetiawan@economist.com
twitter: @dsetia_1
linkedin: linkedin.com/dnystwn
How to contact
me after this
event