In the previous post, we discussed the ingredients needed to start a project on the right footing. In this post, we will look at how we deliver and what this means for our customers.

We previously discussed how important it is to define outcomes upfront and use these to drive the project delivery process. For our customers, the maturity and scale of the outcome can vary considerably. Let’s take two examples:

1. Working on a Proof of Value for a new product, which can tangibly demonstrate to customer stakeholders some level of value which will unlock further investment
2. Delivering a production solution which deliver asset condition monitoring to drive reduction in factory downtime.

In each case the maturity and scale are different, but we still need to concisely define the outcomes in order to deliver success for the customer stakeholders.

To help define outcomes we will hold customer workshops, which may be short in the asset monitoring case, but longer when developing a new product. Our workshops work with customers to clearly define the customer and/or business outcomes and the overall scope. At a high level we will consider:

• An exploration of customer and business needs, and the key stakeholders involved.
• We validate any of our customers assumptions
• We use techniques such as the Value Proposition Canvas, Persona Development, User Story Generation, User Testing where needed.
• We generate an agreed set of customer and business outcomes, with quantitative and qualitative metrics as needed, usually accompanied by relevant User Stories for key Personas.

In terms of maturity of solution, this varies across project, but we categorise into one of the 5 following groups:

• Demo - partial functionality to prove a showcase technology for a specific customer use case
• PoV - complete functionality for a single use case which can demonstrate value
• Prototype - multiple use cases which may be tested with customers
• MLP - an initial customer deliverable meeting the minimum requirements for an end customer
• Production - a scalable and supported solution covering all uses cases

Workshop effort is proportional to project scope and maturity of solution which is needed.

Project delivery is based around an agile process focussed on the agreed customer and business outcomes, and we continually validate against those outcomes. We typically split into Design sprints and Development sprints. Design sprints often explore the problem space, mitigate risk identified in the project, and carry out traditional design tasks from UX to AWS architecture, where as Development sprints are related to typical developer activities such as coding, review, testing.

On all projects we assign a Project Lead and Customer Success Manager, who act as the primary contact points for our customers. We also onboard our Ops team for those project we will continue to support on behalf of customers once they are live.

In the next post we will look at Risk and the Cone of Uncertainty.