Taming Scope, Schedule and Budget with Great Feedback
You know a project best in hindsight. The key to truly understanding the value of what we are doing and crafting a vision for the future of any product, is gathering a lot of feedback throughout the process. A project without great feedback is a project that will not only skim over business needs, but customer needs too.
Through Agile work processes and new forms of collaboration, the number of feedback channels and the quantity of feedback are on the increase. It is time to look at how we can tame the flow of information and keep everyone happy.
Ideas for generating great feedback
The following ideas apply to projects run in the Agile philosophy but can be tweaked for any other project. For a more thorough introduction to Agile, see our ‘Inside-out vs. Outside-in’ story.
Get into the heads of your personas
Business needs are important, but make sure you base feedback on the personas’ needs to add more value to the product. If you are unsure whether to add Feature A and Feature B to the website, gather important stakeholders and give value points to each element. Discuss how the features relate to the personas’ needs and the business needs. You might find that Feature A is more valued by the stakeholders than Feature B. This helps us to create a website with all the “Must-Haves” and leaves the “Nice-To-Haves” for a potential phase 2.
Communicate the “why”
Be as critical as you like, so long as you can back up your criticism with references to the personas or strategic goals that have been defined in the business case. This approach helps to focus on the strategy and project execution.
Don’t offer solutions, identify problems
Be clear about the challenges you’re facing. If the whole team sees the same challenge, we can get to a solution much faster, together. We can apply our creative skills to solve the problem based on your knowledge of the business and your customers. To get to the root of a problem the second idea comes into play. By asking “Why?” you will eventually dig deep enough to see the problem clearly.
Example Statement: We need less white space on the website.
Why? Because we are not putting the pixels we have to good use. Why? The personas are really busy and do not have time to scroll down the whole homepage to find what they need. Why? The personas cannot find what they need quick enough and are stressed.
Why? The most commonly used tools and timesavers are hard to find on the website.
Why? There are too many sub-categories in the navigation and important items do not have enough visual impact.
The solution might be: Streamline the IA and use a bright, active colour to highlight features. Put elements into order, by importance.
We are all professionals.
You are professionals that know everything about your business and its customers and we have the creative skills and technical prowess to create brilliant solutions for you. Feedback and advice can be discussed openly and honestly when we all have implicit trust each other’s excellence.
Value and risk
Feedback must be prioritised by the value it adds to the product. This is the only way we can make sure we focus on the most important things and leave everything else for future phases. We might not have all the features on the website now, but we focus on the features that create the biggest value.
Consolidation
Feedback has to be pre-validated by the above rules and consolidated before it is delivered to the project team. The only times where we can process feedback are the Planning Sessions at the beginning of each Cycle.
The Reality Check on Friday is for minor adjustments of the direction the team is going with the project.
Now, play with the ideas, stay agile and remember:
If we understand that as client and agency, we are a cohesive team with a shared responsibility, we can guide product owners to address feedback in the most effective way. Together, we can create a culture that delivers the best results with least amount of pain.
