What is it?

• Inspired by Lean Startup and Agile development, it’s the practice of bringing the true nature of a product to light faster, in a collaborative, cross-functional way. We work to build a shared understanding of the customer, their needs, our proposed solutions and definition of success. We prioritise learning over delivery to build evidence for our decisions
• Or to put it another way, it’s about making sure that what you’re doing is likely to be a good idea before you put too much effort into it

The Lean UX canvas

0_UX-strategy-template.pdf

The following steps are loosely based on the Lean UX canvas

Step 1 - Understand

Usually done in a kick-off meeting with stakeholders along your PM or a working group. Just like ask the experts in the Understand day of a Design Sprint you will have knowledge experts across the business are invited to articulate the problem space from business, user, competitor, and technological angles.

1. What is the business problem you are trying to solve?

   This is a description of the starting point everybody agrees to. It is the common and shared understanding of facts

2. Why is this a problem?

   • There is always a trigger why you start something new. Something has changed. Examples are: you see a new market opportunity; some KPIs deviate and you need to take action; you identified a new focus project in your strategy process; etc.
   • Request or add your self any links to customer conversations or research. Clearly have an explanation of all facets of the problem and how it affects different parts of your Organisation.
   • Ask What is it that we want to achieve? It is about intent, not a concrete solution.This is an important difference that is often missed. The intent has to formulated in such a way that- as the Spice Girls’ questions is truly answered: What do you really, really want? - It must be clear enough that the team knows where to look for a solution. And it must be general enough such that the team has room to come up with a HOW to fulfil the intent.

3. Who is the customer you are solving the problem for?

   • What types of users and customers should you focus first? Are they external or internal? What is the customer segment that is been targeted?