Here's our view on how to unlock the formula for sustainable digital product excellence. These observations are drawn from our 13 years working in the digital industry across the UK, US, Europe and since opening our Australian doors five years ago. This deck was presented by Jess Ross and Lauren Argenta at Wilson Fletcher's breakfast event at Australian Design Centre in Sydney on 24th September 2015. Thanks to everyone who joined us at the event! Please get in touch with our New Business Manager, Luke Parry, if you'd like to discuss a project or hear more about WF. luke@wilsonfletcher.com / 02 8985 7140

1. Unlocking the formula for sustainable
digital product excellence.
Jess Ross & Lauren Argenta
Wilson Fletcher ANZ

2. 2
“Innovation remains a frustrating pursuit. Failure
rates are high and even successful companies
can’t sustain their performance.
“The root cause is that companies fall into the trap
of adopting whatever best practices are in vogue
or aping the exemplar innovation of the moment.”
Gary P Pisano, Harvard Business Review, June 2015

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Unlocking the formula for sustainable
digital product excellence is the
defining challenge of our age.

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Many organisations are aggressively
integrating digital and design capability
into their business.

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Naturally, all these models have positives and negatives.
In more advanced markets such as the US and the UK, many large established organisations are already on their
third or fourth cycle, having still not found one that works for them…
SINGLE INTERNAL
DIGITAL DESIGN TEAM
EXTERNAL
INNOVATION LAB
INTERNAL
DISRUPTION TEAM
DISTRIBUTED
DIGITAL RESOURCE

6. 6
WHY IS IT SO HARD?

7. 7
“Innovation remains a frustrating pursuit. Failure
rates are high and even successful companies
can’t sustain their performance.
“The root cause is that companies fall into the trap
of adopting whatever best practices are in vogue
or aping the exemplar innovation of the moment.”
Gary P Pisano, Harvard Business Review, June 2015

8. 8
Our current model for achieving digital innovation is Silicon Valley. It’s start-ups. It makes sense, these guys are
living the dream. And they’re what many established organisations fear.
They’re the disruptors.

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But the agendas, challenges, risks and aims of start-ups and established organisations are dramatically different.
So why are we looking to the working practices adopted by start-ups to provide the answers for established
organisations? There is a fundamentally broken logic here.
Established orgs Start-ups
ORGANISATIONALTRAITS
Volume of products
Scale
Reputation
Heritage/legacy
Digital leadership skills
MARKET CONTEXT
Disruptive threats
Commercial risk
Customer expectations
Trend fragility

10. 10
Start-ups are the product of
innovation, not the engine.

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$1BN $120M$970M
Before it even
launched
And their marker of success is how much you can be sold for, not how much money they make; because a lot of
them don’t make any money at all.

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Agile Delivery Framework
LEARNINCEPTION
(PLANNING)
DISCOVERY
INVESTMENT
THEMES
ANALYTICS
KPI’s
CUSTOMER
FEEDBACK
DELIVERY
SPRINT
BACKLOG
SPRINT
BACKLOG
1-4 WEEK
SPRINTS1-4 WEEK
SPRINTS1-4 WEEK
SPRINTS1-4 WEEK
SPRINTS
DAILY
STAND
UPS
FINISHED
WORK
BUSINESS
STRATEGY
BUSINESS
PORTFOLIO
PLANNING AND
OPTIMISATION
STAKEHOLDER
ENGAGEMENT
UX EXPLORATION:
• Problem framing
• Ideation
• Personas
• Concepts
• User journeys
• Content strategy
PRODUCT
BACKLOG
SPRINT PLANNING
DEFINE THE
PROJECT TEAM:
• Product owner
• UX lead
• BA
• Delivery
Yet this is the model that many established organisations adopt to deliver digital products into market.
The focus is often solely on delivery, which unfortunately ends up in the exclusion of the product itself.

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NEVER COMPROMISE
PRODUCT QUALITY

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The importance of the interface
How experience
design feels to
businesses
How experience
design feels to
customers

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Minimum product
DELIGHTFUL
USABLE
VALUABLE
FEASIBLE
Minimum viable product
What is
released

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TIP 1: MAKE YOUR VISION
TANGIBLE.

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We need a step
change
Our product is
dying and in need
of reinvention
We need
something new
These are the moments of greatest risk in the product lifecycle.
They are the times at which it makes sense to bring in specialists, and to explore and validate all assumptions with
customers.

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To understand the scope of the new opportunity, you need to take the time to explore what the new customer
experience could or should be.
Once you do this, you can pull together a more robust business case or reduce losses before you invest too much.

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TIP 2: DON’T UNDERESTIMATE
THE VALUE OF A GREAT
PRODUCT MANAGER

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Customer Business
Market trends
Your product
manager

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PRODUCT
MANAGERS
I

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TIP 3: EXPERIMENT BEHIND
CLOSED DOORS

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Start ups are often quoted as pushing a fail fast agenda; get it out and learn in market.
We acknowledge that you won’t always know what you need to do, and you will need to experiment in order to get that
right, but in our opinion established organisations need to do it behind closed doors.

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Start-up MVP
DELIGHTFUL
USABLE
VALUABLE
FEASIBLE
Established org MVP

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SO IN SHORT…

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Don’t focus on
delivery to the
exclusion of the
product
Always make
your vision
tangible
Arm your process
with product
managers as
guides
Experiment often
but always
behind closed
doors
Fund exploration
to really
understand your
POC before you
business case
Don’t design an
MP.Design a
vision and then
release an MVP
In short…

27. Thank you
@wilsonfletcher
#WFtalks
www.wilsonfletcher.com