The Brain and

The Hands

BY CORNELLIUS NGONDO

ABOUT ME

I'M A HUMAN BEING

I'M CORNELLIUS AND 

The Brain:

Ideation Process

You are that person that holds the next big idea!!!

Highlight the problem but......

don't solve the problem!!

Huh!???

Provide a solution to the problem

Employees solve problems,

Employers provide solutions 

How do we provide solutions?

• Identify the problem
• Clearly articulate the hypothesis
• Validate the hypothesis

Identify the problem

• User Research
• Quantitative Metrics(Use the numbers)
• Expert Evaluation

Is there really a problem?

Find out if there's a problem. How?

According to.....(data).....(customer)......[verb]......(problem)

The problem statement should read like:

According to the research we did, John finds it hard to locate our restaurant.

FOR EXAMPLE:

Clearly articulate the hypothesis

• Build the scenario
• Take the customer approach while providing the solution
• Prototype the solution
• Build a simple solution that you can test it with your users.
• Use whatever tools necessary to come up with a good solution.

We believe that....(who)....will....(what).

For example

We believe that John will locate the place if we put signboards on the major roads.

For example

Validate the hypothesis

• Minimize the risk!! Debug the design!!
• You can either use:
  • Paper Prototyping (Early stage prototyping)
  • Usability Testing (Product exists but in debug mode)
• Analyse user behaviour and feedback patterns:
  • Best done with analytics software like:-
    • Google analytics
    • Keen.io
    • twitter analytics
    • mixpanel

Did you really prove the hypothesis?

The Hands:

Tech Team

The Justice League

• Designer(Flash):
  • Artistic guy
  • visualizes the product
  • Responsible of how the product looks and feels
  • Good with colors and generally able to create good visuals
  • Will be more powerful if equipped with good UX skills.

The Justice League

• Back End Developer(Batman):
  • Handles everything behind the curtains
  • Good at databases, servers, testing, configurations, analytics, Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
  • Super geek of the team
  • Has substantial knowledge of front end  

The Justice League

• Front End Developer(Wonder Woman):
  • Is able to translate the designer's work into code.
  • Creates the visual effects of the product
  • Responsible for the interactivity of the product
  • Is very good with visuals
  • Will be more powerful with background knowledge on User Experience and User Centered Design.

The Justice League

• Mobile Developer(Green Lantern):
  • Is able to translate your product to a relevant mobile touch.
  • In depth at least one of the following technologies: swift(iOS), java(android), C#(Windows)
  • Deep knowledge on how the Model View Controller(MVC) infrastructure works

The Justice League

• Business Developer(Superman):
  • The money guy that makes the whole team hold together
  • Leadership skills
  • Ability to put a price tag on literally anything depending on the times and seasons
  • Has the muscle to push everything: money, law, marketing and support for all others.
  • Inspiration guy
  • Awesome at identifying opportunities
  • Very informed

If you can't hire all that "A-Team", this will also work: 

• Designer
• Techie: (Can code in at least 3 programming languages)​
• Business Developer

A good tech team needs co-ordination. 

You need chemistry!!!

Co-ordination? How?

Agile Methodology

what was that again?

Agile: What is it?

• Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

Def: One of the software development process based on the Agile Manifesto which states:

One of the most popular and widely used framework of Agile is....

SCRUM

Scrum is...

• A specific lightweight, Agile process framework for iterative development
  • Process Framework: A specific set of practices
  • Lightweight: Set is small, not comprehensive
  • Agile: Reflects the Agile Manifesto 
  • Iterative: Deliver results in frequent increments

Characteristics of scrum

• The Roles:
• The Artifacts:
• The Time boxes:

Characteristics of scrum: Roles

• Team:
  • ​Self-organizes cross-functional members to implement, test features
  • Software & test engineers, database architects, UI developers, etc.
  • Owns estimates, tasks, assignments

Characteristics of scrum: Roles

• Scrum Master:
  • ​Does whatever is needed to make Team as productive as possible
  • Acts as Servant Leader
  • Owns process (enforces, tracks, expedites problem resolution)
  • Runs Daily Scrum, Sprint Planning, Retrospective Meetings
  • Often a Project Manager

Characteristics of scrum: Roles

• Product Owner:
  • ​Is Team’s sole source of truth for requirements and priorities
  • Owns requirements (new features, bug fixes) and ranking
  • Works with customers, stakeholders to define & rank user-facing features
  • Collaborates with Team to ensure proper implementation
  • Often a Product Manager, Business Analyst

Characteristics of scrum

• The Artifacts:
  • ​Product backlog: The wishlist
  • Sprint Backlog: Prioritized wishlist
  • Burndown Chart: Progress of how the wishes are made true

Characteristics of scrum

• The Five Time Boxes:
  • ​Sprint: Optimum 2 weeks but it depends on the project
  • Sprint Planning Meeting: 0 - 8hrs 
  • Daily Scrum: 15 Minutes
  • Sprint Review: 1 hour
  • Retrospective: 1 hour

How it works

• Effective on small team

• Scrum of scrums for larger teams

• Superman has the sun

• Batman has his suits and gadgets

• Wonder woman has her "Lasso of truth"

• Green Lantern has his power ring

Tools

A product that relies heavily on tech could use:

• Version Control: Git and github
• Cloud Computing: Google App Engine, Microsoft Azure
• Database As A Service(DAAS): Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Firebase, Couchbase, MS Azure
• Analytics: Google Analytics, Keen.io, Mixpanel
• Agile Tools: Jira, Asana, Trello

Productivity can only be maximized if there exists proper co-ordination among team members.

Take Homes

Provide solutions to real problems.

Don't annoy people

Careful who you hire

Credits:

• Entreprenuership School
• Moringa School
• Scrum Alliance
• Google Images
• Memegenerator

Chawucha!!