As a non-attendee of this talk, I love the format and questions. We’ve never used a rigorous structure for our projects, but I think one would be super helpful. The one question I had after reviewing the slides is: @tdooner do you think making every project do this at the outset is a good idea, or would you say there’s a different “best” time to complete it?
A short follow up is: can you elaborate on the difference between the “Technology Project” canvas and the “Discovery Project” one? I’m thinking that I use the “Discovery” one when I’m not sure of a specific “Technology Project” that I’ve already outlined clearly-enough to start “writing code” on. Is that right? (I feel fairly clear that the “User Testing Canvas” is for when I’m wanting to discover how users find working with a specific tool, but if I’m mistaken about that I’d also love to learn.)
Our thinking on this is that the format is likely flexible enough to fit in your process wherever makes sense (i.e. it is likely still helpful even for existing projects). That said, I do think that there are benefits to completing the Canvas early: it serves as documentation for new team members that come onboard, and also helps force some clarity of vision for the project team.
You got it. We were thinking that a Discovery project would be something like a “needs finding” process – working within the community to determine what some possible Technology projects might be.