Product Development
Template
Description
Make your product development cycle blazingly fast with expert-led processes: from requirement gathering to design, development, and QA, ensuring goal alignment.
Actors
- Business Analyst – A Business Analyst acts as a bridge between business needs and technology solutions, focusing on analyzing and improving business processes and systems to enhance organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
- Expert User
- QA Technician
- Software Developer
- System Architect
- UI Designer
Process Stories
- Product Development Story
-
If requirements have not already been gathered, Business Analyst, Expert User gather and document requirements.
- Expert User verbally describes business activities.
- Business Analyst documents activities in a business process story.
- Clarifying or expanding on what Expert User described, Business Analyst asks questions as needed.
- If Expert User describes a high-level idea, Business Analyst records it as an “Idea to Incorporate”.
- If the idea is one that cannot be incorporated into the story, Business Analyst records it as a requirement statement.
- Once the basic structure of the process story is in place, Business Analyst, Expert User review the ideas to incorporate and make changes to the story.
- Business Analyst, Expert User modify each relevant activity and adding activities as needed to represent the idea throughout the business process.
- For critical system users, Business Analyst, Expert User work with specific actors and actual users to write user experience stories.
- Business Analyst reviews user experience stories to ensure each activity is included in the business process story.
- Expert User write a business case document describing general business objectives and their financial impact.
- While reading the document, Business Analyst, Expert User review business process story against the business case details to ensure business objectives are achieved by the documented business activities.
- While reading the document, Expert User reviews the story and comments on incorrect or unclear wording, additional relevant details, and anything else that comes to mind.
- Until Expert User is satisfied, Business Analyst revises the business process story till everything relevant is represented .
- Until satisfied, Business Analyst revises the business process story until the story is understandable and actionable.
-
Business Analyst documents overlaps and gaps with an existing system.
- If there is an existing system that will be modified or extended, Business Analyst reviews each activity in the business process story and documents it as representing an overlap or gap in the existing system.
- For each overlap, Business Analyst documents how that activity is done in the existing system.
- For each gap, Business Analyst documents any aspects of the existing system that are partial overlaps, and adds it to the list of gaps for design and implementation.
-
System Architect models data and defines system interfaces.
- System Architect reviews each activity in business process stories and write data statements based on explicit or implied data to be recorded or reviewed by actors.
- System Architect reviews screen and report outlines and maps each field to a field in the existing data model.
- If there is no adequate field in the existing data model, System Architect records data statements describing the field and its relationship to other data concepts.
- System Architect reviews user interfaces and based on anticipated system architecture (especially for client applications on mobile or desktop devices) designs services and/or API for processing user input and preparing more complex data for presentation.
- System Architect reviews business process story to identify all system-system interactions (as opposed to user-system interactions).
- System Architect identifies an existing system interface for each interaction, or defines a system interface (web service, file drop, API call, etc).
- System Architect maps each field in system interfaces to the data model.
- For fields without an existing field in the data model, System Architect records data statements describing the field and its relationship to other data concepts.
- System Architect organizes data statements by data concept to group them for easier modeling and to remove redundant statements.
- System Architect maps each data statement to the data model and as needed extends data model based on data statements.
- System Architect updates user and system interface data mappings for relevant fields.
- System Architect defines initial and test data to demonstrate how data is structured and to use for testing.
-
If needed, UI Designer designs screens and reports.
- Considering activities from the business process story and on gap descriptions, UI Designer outlines the contents of screens and reports.
- UI Designer creates functional wireframes to accompany the screen and report outlines.
- UI Designer optionally creates screen flow diagram to show transitions between screens in each application.
- Business Analyst reviews outlines and wireframes to verify the designs against the requirements.
- Business Analyst asks questions to UI Designer as needed, and may do the entire review in conversation with UI Designer.
- Business Analyst, UI Designer reviews outlines and wireframes to verify the designs against the requirements with Expert User by role playing.
- Expert User follows the business process story describing what they would do as each of the actors to perform each action.
- UI Designer plays the role of the system and describes how the system would respond to each user action, including changing from one wireframe to another as screens change.
- UI Designer updates outlines and wireframes based on comments from Business Analyst and Expert User.
- If comments from Expert User require business process changes, Business Analyst updates relevant stories.
- If comments from Expert User require business process changes, UI Designer updates design according to updated requirements.
-
Software Developer implements user and system interface designs.
- Software Developer reviews business process story to understand the context of what needs to be built.
- Software Developer implements software described in user interface designs and technical designs.
-
Business Analyst, Expert User, System Architect, UI Designer review implementation.
- System Architect reviews implementation to ensure that data comes from and goes to the fields described in data mapping.
- System Architect reviews service and/or API implementations and other system interfaces for consistency with the technical designs.
- UI Designer reviews user interfaces and tests interactions against descriptions in the screen and report outlines, and layout against the wireframes.
- Business Analyst reviews implementation by performing business activities described in the business process story.
- Business Analyst hands off each activity that is functionally supported to the Expert User for final review and testing.
- If QA Technician is involved, QA Technician performs a comprehensive test of implementation against individual designs and end-to-end test based on the requirements in the business process story.
- QA Technician identifies and tests possible uses of the implementation that are not part of the business process story, and not an explicit part of the user and system interface designs.
- With comprehensive testing done by QA Technician, other roles can reduce their efforts to spot review and testing, Expert User reviews everything from a user perspective for acceptance of delivery.
- Business Analyst , Expert user gather and document requirements
-
Expert User verbally describes business activities.
-
Business Analyst documents activities in a business process story.
-
Clarifying or expanding on what Expert User described, Business Analyst asks questions as needed.
-
If Expert User describes a high-level idea, Business Analyst records it as an “Idea to Incorporate”.
-
If the idea is one that cannot be incorporated into the story, Business Analyst records it as a requirement statement.
-
Once the basic structure of the process story is in place, Business Analyst, Expert User review the ideas to incorporate and make changes to the story.
-
Business Analyst, Expert User modify each relevant activity and adding activities as needed to represent the idea throughout the business process.
-
For critical system users, Business Analyst, Expert User work with specific actors and actual users to write user experience stories.
-
Business Analyst reviews user experience stories to ensure each activity is included in the business process story.
-
Expert User write a business case document describing general business objectives and their financial impact.
-
While reading the document, Business Analyst, Expert User review business process story against the business case details to ensure business objectives are achieved by the documented business activities.
-
While reading the document, Expert User reviews the story and comments on incorrect or unclear wording, additional relevant details, and anything else that comes to mind.
-
Until Expert User is satisfied, Business Analyst revises the business process story till everything relevant is represented .
-
Until satisfied, Business Analyst revises the business process story until the story is understandable and actionable.
- Business Analyst documents overlaps and gaps with an existing system
-
If there is an existing system that will be modified or extended, Business Analyst reviews each activity in the business process story and documents it as representing an overlap or gap in the existing system.
-
For each overlap, Business Analyst documents how that activity is done in the existing system.
-
For each gap, Business Analyst documents any aspects of the existing system that are partial overlaps, and adds it to the list of gaps for design and implementation.
- UI Designer designs screens and reports
-
Considering activities from the business process story and on gap descriptions, UI Designer outlines the contents of screens and reports.
-
UI Designer creates functional wireframes to accompany the screen and report outlines.
-
UI Designer optionally creates screen flow diagram to show transitions between screens in each application.
-
Business Analyst reviews outlines and wireframes to verify the designs against the requirements.
-
Business Analyst asks questions to UI Designer as needed, and may do the entire review in conversation with UI Designer.
-
Business Analyst, UI Designer reviews outlines and wireframes to verify the designs against the requirements with Expert User by role playing.
-
Expert User follows the business process story describing what they would do as each of the actors to perform each action.
-
UI Designer plays the role of the system and describes how the system would respond to each user action, including changing from one wireframe to another as screens change.
-
UI Designer updates outlines and wireframes based on comments from Business Analyst and Expert User.
-
If comments from Expert User require business process changes, Business Analyst updates relevant stories.
-
If comments from Expert User require business process changes, UI Designer updates design according to updated requirements.
- System Architect models data and defines system interfaces
-
System Architect reviews each activity in business process stories and write data statements based on explicit or implied data to be recorded or reviewed by actors.
-
System Architect reviews screen and report outlines and maps each field to a field in the existing data model.
-
If there is no adequate field in the existing data model, System Architect records data statements describing the field and its relationship to other data concepts.
-
System Architect reviews user interfaces and based on anticipated system architecture (especially for client applications on mobile or desktop devices) designs services and/or API for processing user input and preparing more complex data for presentation.
-
System Architect reviews business process story to identify all system-system interactions (as opposed to user-system interactions).
-
System Architect identifies an existing system interface for each interaction, or defines a system interface (web service, file drop, API call, etc).
-
System Architect maps each field in system interfaces to the data model.
-
For fields without an existing field in the data model, System Architect records data statements describing the field and its relationship to other data concepts.
-
System Architect organizes data statements by data concept to group them for easier modeling and to remove redundant statements.
-
System Architect maps each data statement to the data model and as needed extends data model based on data statements.
-
System Architect updates user and system interface data mappings for relevant fields.
-
System Architect defines initial and test data to demonstrate how data is structured and to use for testing.
- Software Developer implements user and system interface designs
-
Software Developer reviews business process story to understand the context of what needs to be built.
-
Software Developer implements software described in user interface designs and technical designs.
- Business Analyst , Expert User , System Architect , UI Designer review implementation
-
System Architect reviews implementation to ensure that data comes from and goes to the fields described in data mapping.
-
System Architect reviews service and/or API implementations and other system interfaces for consistency with the technical designs.
-
UI Designer reviews user interfaces and tests interactions against descriptions in the screen and report outlines, and layout against the wireframes.
-
Business Analyst reviews implementation by performing business activities described in the business process story.
-
Business Analyst hands off each activity that is functionally supported to the Expert User for final review and testing.
-
If QA Technician is involved, QA Technician performs a comprehensive test of implementation against individual designs and end-to-end test based on the requirements in the business process story.
-
QA Technician identifies and tests possible uses of the implementation that are not part of the business process story, and not an explicit part of the user and system interface designs.
-
With comprehensive testing done by QA Technician, other roles can reduce their efforts to spot review and testing, Expert User reviews everything from a user perspective for acceptance of delivery.