4. What is important in the process?
The ideal sprint process should look like this:
Map – 10%: create the big picture of the solution
Target – 10%: define SMART goals and personas
Sketch – 20%: describe the first ideas
Decide – 10%: decide the directions to go; create “must haves”, “should haves”, “could haves” and “nice to haves”
Storyboard – 10%: elaborate details using user stories and story boards
Prototype – 20%: create prototypes
Test – 20%:test prototypes with stakeholders and use feedback for further development
The mapping phase describes the challenges and requirements, the expected outcomes and the areas where additional information is needed.
The targeting phase finds out who are the relevant stakeholders and defines how they can be involved best. Technologies are evaluated. The outcome should be: what is done for whom and how and what are the benefits for each stakeholder.
In the sketching phase one finds out what are good practices from other areas or industries and what can be learned from them. The first ideas are sketched, so ideally put down graphically or in short sentences. Important is the description of the customer value of these ideas.
In the decision phase shall be defined how decisions will we done, which are the evaluation criteria, topics as e.g., confidentiality shall be addressed.
The selected ideas are then translated into user stories and storyboards.
In the prototyping phase low level prototypes, like paper prototypes, click prototypes or wire frames are created and tested in several iterations. High level prototypes are closer to the final product.
In the test phase prototypes are tested, users and their experience are observed and the results are used in order to create the next iterations.
Remember that this is an iterative process, so you might move between phases as the team gets additional insights.
Most important in the process are transparency, the prevalence of the team result over individual results, the constant involvement of stakeholders and users and the will to create a maximum of customer satisfaction.