Analysis of Lean product development: value-oriented visualization

User Story map and task Kanban, version and Iteration Burndown charts, visualization has become a necessary practice for agile and lean product development. Is visualization really important? We'll start with a real team practice, explore the role of visualization, and how to make visualization work.

1. A team example

This is a 50-person team that makes enterprise storage and data management products that promote team communication, decision-making, self-management, and continuous improvement through visualization of value, technology risk, and value flow processes in product development.

1.1 Visualization Value

Figure 1 is a user story Atlas used by the team that integrates product objectives, product features, and product release plans.

Figure 1 Example of a user story map

The contents of the two sheets on the top left of the figure are the main user requirements and product objectives, and they are also the starting point and basis for the definition of product functionality. The top colored note is the business category, for example, for data management products, the business categories are data creation, data storage, data usage, data sharing, data destruction, and system management. The combination of these business categories from left to right forms the mainstream of the user's use of the system, which is the business process.

Below each business category are several to dozens of white notes that describe the product features in the form of a user story. The functional items are ranked from top to bottom, relying on the important and basic function items, and the subordinate and supplementary functional items.

Based on the arranged user stories, the team developed the release plan, and the three red curves across the map correspond to three releases, which are made up of a product feature set that makes sense to the user.

When the project starts, the team defines the first version of the user story map, and the product development process is continuously adjusted and updated as the product is recognized in depth. The User Story Atlas system integrates the goals, functionality, and release plans of the product, facilitating the team to communicate and understand product goals and values, and actively participate in collaboration.

1.2 Visualization of risks

In the process of product development, we must deal with all kinds of risks, figure ㈡ is the technical risk matrix used by the team, it presents the content of technical risk, the probability of occurrence, influence size and the solution.

Figure 2 Technical Risk matrix