In this phase, objectives and key results are tracked, and milestones are added to the appropriate launch calendar.
At this point, you should:
Throughout the build and launch phase, you should produce weekly 2x2 reports highlighting accomplishments, headwinds, blockers, and key milestones. 2x2 reports should be mandatory for products and initiatives with a broad impact.
Successful product teams figure out how to think big and work small. Working Backwards provides a framework to do this by deconstructing bold and ambitious goals into manageable plans.
Objectives are ambitious goals that align with your organization's priorities. Key results indicate whether or not you've achieved an objective. Achieve key results by hitting the release milestones recorded and managed in the launch calendar. Teams should use a Roadmap to work backward from their release milestones and plan what they'll work on and when. Use an iterative process to design and build the features on the roadmap, track progress, and measure impacts while reporting weekly in 2x2s.
Launch Calendars are where you enter key release milestones that will enable you to achieve your objectives and key results (OKRs). Each milestone should represent some value you'll deliver to your customers (usually in the form of a feature). Your hypothesis should be that providing value by completing a milestone takes you a step closer to achieving your OKRs.
Add milestones to a relevant launch calendar. It's often best to start with just one or two milestones. Focus on those that deliver the most value at the earliest opportunity.
Use a Roadmap to work backward from your launch calendar milestones to plan and manage your product or service's design, development, and testing. A roadmap is a visual representation of your key initiatives and when you intend to work on them.
There are several tools you can use to manage your Roadmap. Jira by Atlassian is a popular choice because it enables you to drill down from high-level initiatives and milestones to the Epic and Story tickets used by an Agile team to manage the development work.
Once you define your roadmap, you should create descriptions and artifacts to describe the features and capabilities you'll build. Rather than writing large, upfront specification documents, you should work in small batches and adapt to client feedback as part of the iterative development process.
The artifacts you create will vary depending on your product but will likely include the following.
Problem statements describe the problem you're trying to solve or the speculative opportunity you're aiming to address. They explain why it's important to solve the problem or address the opportunity. Clearly describe the problem from a customer's perspective and explain the impact of solving it. Quantify the impact by stating the measurable outcome that you hope to achieve.
Learn more about problem statements:
"How might we...?" questions reframe your problem statement as a design challenge to open up thinking and encourage exploration of a range of solutions. "How" highlights that you don't yet have an answer. "Might" promotes the exploration of multiple possible solutions. "We" establishes that finding and shaping the solution is collaborative.
Design thinking is at the heart of understanding client needs and bringing creative insight to the products you build.
A prototype is a model of a proposed solution used to explore, test, or validate ideas and assumptions. Creating early prototypes enables you to bring design concepts to life with minimal investment rapidly. You can use early prototypes to gather user feedback and provide direction to stakeholders. Prototypes allow you to refine or even change direction before a single line of code is written.
Detailed wireframes and high-fidelity UI mockups remove ambiguity from the development process by establishing and documenting a shared understanding of how your solution will work and look.
Usability studies and other forms of tactical user research enable you to evaluate a design at any level of fidelity and make changes to work better for its intended audience. Tactical research addresses questions such as:
As you define and refine your solution's form, you should break the work down into increments of value you can deliver during a sprint. Scrum is a tool that can help you do this.
A 2x2 report is a one-page document that summarizes, in four quadrants (hence the 2x2 name), the highlights, low-lights, risks and blockers, needs for escalation, and upcoming deliverables for a specific initiative. You should complete weekly 2x2 reports throughout the design, build, and launch phases.
Ask bar raisers to complete architecture reviews. Once your memo is endorsed, they perform detailed architectural reviews during the design and build phases. Tech Bar Raisers should actively work with you to iterate on technical designs, help raise the bar on your architecture, and provide guidance on the latest best practices.
All products should go through an Operational Readiness Review (ORR) before launch to ensure the following: