The Successful Integration of Product Management, User Experience, and Development

This workshop teaches an approach to product development that considers the needs and goals of Product Management (PM), User eXperience Designers (UX), and Software Developers. This Integrated Development Approach gets all three disciplines working together. The approach addresses three iterative and overlapping activities: Product Research, Product Design, and Product Implementation. 1. Product Research - determines “Target Users” and the “Target Benefits” they are expecting from the software; 2. Product Design - determines the functionality needed to achieve Target Benefits (i.e., it produces draft interaction designs and a story map); 3. Product Implementation - refines interaction designs and implements the highest-priority features. Unique to our approach is a consensus reaching technique known as the Point of View (POV) process (by Richard Tripp). The POV process is a technique for reaching consensus in a fixed time-frame. The technique consists of individuals on the team forming an “Individual Point of View” (IPOV). Then, using consensus building techniques, the team transforms the Individual Points of View into a single “Team Point of View” (TPOV). This approach benefits product development by providing the following: 1. A set of techniques that helps PM identify and select both Target Users and Target Benefits (in the form of epic user stories). Target Users and Target Benefits help PM focus on the important users and features of the software (i.e., those that have the biggest ROI), and not just the loudest users. 2. A shared vision and purpose among Product Management, User eXperience Design, and Agile Developers. This approach to a shared purpose helps people on the team to better understand the customer, the customer needs, and working towards the same goal. 3. A time-boxed iterative approach to reach an agreed-upon solution within a given time constraint. This benefit ensures that 1) design is appropriately considered - no more implementing with little to no thought, and 2) time boxing keeps the team from over-analyzing. Presentation History + This approach has been used at Infusionsoft for over two years. + We have successfully taught this process to all Product Managers, UX Designers, and Developers at Infusionsoft.