In the past, when I started a project, I used Lean Canvas to help me know my value proposition. I stopped using it.
The Lean Canvas isn’t helping me at this stage. I can fill the canvas, but most of those points will be assumptions that will bring me a false sense of control or just generic enough that will apply to any project I start.
I started to ask myself the next question.
Does it make sense to think about the business before proving customer value?
As you might guess, the answer is it depends.
Lean Canvas contains multiple dimensions, users, channels, problem-solution, revenue, costs, … damn! Too many things to take into account!
In my case, I consider that it doesn’t, as it could distract me from the important aspect of the project.
Verify the user value.
Instead, I will add all my assumptions and purpose into a Wardley Map to see if it makes sense what I am building.
Purpose
What is your purpose? Why does the project exists?
The project is born to help teams make better decisions using the cognitive load assessment without the overhead of continuously assessing it manually.
Scope
What is that you are mapping? What does it include? What does it not include?
I want to map how we used the team cognitive load assessment at Creditas from the technical leadership and developer perspective.
Users
What users interacts with the thing you are mapping?
Technical leaders
Developers
User needs
What do they need from you? What is each user journey?
Technical leaders
Run the team cognitive load assessment
Verify the results over time
Developers
Communicate the developer experience
Value chain
What sorts of things do you need to be doing to fulfill those needs?
Team cognitive load assessment survey
Which produced a google sheets file with all the responses
Manually processing the team cognitive load survey results
Using the google sheets with the cognitive load responses and,
A google sheets containing which person belong to which team
We were able to produce an overview per team of their cognitive load
We created an snapshot of the resulting calculation to compare on the future
The comparison between cognitive load snapshots was manual and team per team.
Of course, everything builds on top of the most used technology on earth, a spreadsheet.
Map
Use the evolutionary characteristics to decide where to place each component along the evolution axis.
I used the Evolution Characteristics from Wardley Mapping to place the components on the evolution axis.
Challenging the map
As I was mapping, I identified that I was biased on where I placed Team cognitive load assessment. I thought it was in the Product (+ rental) stage. But it’s not! We needed to adapt the team cognitive load assessment to our own needs.
Therefore, we were custom building it based on a template and adapting it over time as we learned which questions worked and which didn’t. Plus, we considered the organization's context when sending the survey.
Situational awareness
The only way to make the project valuable for someone is to fight my own confirmation bias. Please, feel free to challenge any assumption I shared here! If the component is miss placed in your opinion, let us all know!
Do you want to join the private beta when available?
Add your email to the next link, and I will contact you when it's available.
https://forms.gle/YfsVUTwNch98m5VdA
Wardley Mapping Team Cognitive Load - Part 2/2
In the next post, I discuss how I aim to influence the map and how I will custom-build, rent, or outsource some components.
If you want to learn more about Wardley Mapping, check out this course by Ben.
