Using Lean UX to transform an organization and build a new product
Based on the success the company was seeing from bringing Lean UX into our organization, the leaders at Hobsons asked me to help form a small team to try applying Lean UX to a new project. They did not know exactly what the new project should be; they only knew that they wanted to branch out into a student-facing product (we had previously focused on administrative tools for school staff.) And because the k12 division of Hobsons was focused solely on career and college readiness, it needed to relate to that. Otherwise, everything was an open question. The information below details the steps I took to tackle this project, and what the final outcome was.
1. Held a persona workshop with internal subject matter experts
Hobsons had a lot of employees who had direct experience with students: former teachers and counselors, coaches, and of course parents. My first step was to hold a persona workshop to collect all of their ideas and thoughts about who modern students are and what they might need from us.
My role: I led a brainstorming workshop with local and remote employees, to form a clearer picture of the types of students that each of us interacted with during the course of our work.
2. Had conversations with schools, students and districts
We didn't really know yet whether we might sell this product directly to students, or if we would continue our traditional model of selling to schools and districts. However, schools and districts have a great deal of insight into the needs of students, so I definitely didn't want to leave them out of the conversation. We also began having some preliminary conversations with students about what they struggled with when it came to feeling ready for life after high school.
My role: I generated user research scripts and trained the team on how to conduct research with users: how to avoid biasing the subjects, how to randomize the order in which concepts are shown, etc. I personally conducted some research while other team members conducted other sessions.
3. Formed provisional personas
I took all of the feedback we collected, and analyzed it to form these 4 basic provisional personas. Persona 3 stood out to our team as the one who we would be most likely to help through a technology-based solution, and it also resonated with many of us because it mirrored the description of first-generation students we had heard from so many of the school staff, teachers and students we had spoken to.
My role: I synthesized the information and generated provisional personas. We decided to focus our energy on Persona 3.
4. Wrote a persona and a scenario
Now that we had a basic idea of who our target student was, we conducted some additional, focused research with schools and generated a detailed persona, Carlos, who represented a first-generation teenager who we would like to help with our new product. We tested the persona with inner-city and first-gen teens to make sure it resonated with them.
Now that we were getting to know Carlos, it was time to tell his story. I wrote a detailed scenario to describe the solution that our team felt would best meet the needs of both school and student users.
The scenario was ambitious, showing how Carlos started in 7th grade without much direction, and used our solution to successfully navigate his way to a rewarding career. We illustrated the scenario to help stakeholders understand our vision. I'm a strong believer that storytelling is a powerful way to communicate the big picture, and it was very effective in this case.
My role: coordinated and conducted follow-up research; wrote a detailed scenario.
I worked with another designer on my team to create this poster-sized vision for our new product's potential future.
5. Created a story map
As I mentioned above, getting Carlos from 7th grade to a post-graduate career was a highly ambitious goal for a brand new software product. Now that we knew what we would ultimately like to accomplish, it was time to scale back to a realistic MVP. I conducted a story mapping workshop with our team to focus in on the best place to start designing and building an actual solution.
My role: I led the team through a story mapping workshop to break our large, ambitious vision down into a small MVP that we could deliver quickly. This story map served as a visual backlog for the duration of the project.
6. Began uncovering and testing hypotheses and assumptions
The team for this project was totally new to Lean UX, so we needed some practice in identifying assumptions that needed to be testing, and determining how to test them. I introduced my team members to a few tools to help with that process.
The Lean Startup Machine Validation Board
A hypothesis mapping tool I developed to help the team become comfortable with the Lean approach.
My role: I coached the team on how to use various thought processes and tools for identifying assumptions to be tested.
7. Tested ideas with students
We established a relationship with a high school near the main Hobsons office which had after-school programs targeting students like Carlos. On a weekly basis, the team would visit the school to test ideas and get feedback so they could iterate rapidly.
My role: I provided hands-on coaching to the team on how to design A/B tests, write test scripts, and conduct tests with students.
8. Created visual design concepts
Based on the feedback we collected from students, we were able to iterate quickly and produce final designs for our developers to begin building.
My role: I designed comps both for the student tests and for the finished product.
9. Built and launched the finished product
Once the product moved into a pilot phase, I moved on to my next project and the pilot product was eventually transitioned back into the core business as part of our regular road map. Now called Naviance Curriculum, it generated $8.5m in new sales from existing customers during its first year on the market.
This video talks more about the finished product that is now in use in schools: