How the concept helps not to get stuck in the development of a new product for years

Dodo Pizza is developed in the USA. In mid-2016, we opened a delivery in Oxford and quickly realized that customer preferences in the United States and Russia are different. Americans are individualists. They are used to making pizza from any ingredients: even bacon with chocolate sauce. Therefore, we had to make such functionality for the American Dodo. We called the project "Own Pizza".

The developers said that the task will take at least six months. But it is too long, the business would lose money. We had to speed up and make the product in a couple of months. But the task looked huge, no one knew how to approach it.

To understand, we used the stage. This tool helped to plan the work and launch “Your pizza” in 2.5 months. In the article we tell how to use the construction.

What should have been done

In order for customers to collect pizza from ingredients, it was necessary to change the Dodo IP:

• set up the admin panel: what ingredients can be added to the pizza, how to group them and at what price to sell;
• make a pizza designer and change all applications so that the client can create pizza on the website, via call center, mobile application or in a restaurant;
• show in tracking the ingredients that the customer chooses. Tracking is a tablet that hangs in the kitchen and shows the pizza maker the ingredients from which he must collect pizza;
• figure out how to distinguish pizzas with different ingredients after cooking. For example, in one pizza cheese and garlic, in the other - only garlic. When they come out of the oven, look the same. So, you need another tablet "Furnace", which will show in what order the pizza got into the oven. In the same order they will be packaged;
• change the accounting system. We used to write off ingredients according to the recipe. For example, a pizza needs a glass of cheese, 100 grams of pepperoni, 100 ml of sauce. As soon as the pizza left the customer, the ingredients in the recipe were written off. At each restaurant, staff saw the remnants of products in the system and learned when to buy new ingredients. With “His pizza”, the client could put anything. Therefore, it was necessary to make the system take the data not from the recipe, but from the order;
• show the ingredients in the check to the customer and the delivery note to the courier;
• Add reports and statistics to understand which pizzas and with which ingredients are most often ordered.

We brought all the changes into one board:

The developers said that such work will take six months or more. But we had to catch up in two or three months. Therefore, we decided to focus on the main thing and only do what is needed to launch a minimally efficient product, and put everything else on until later. Separating the important from the unimportant helped the stage.

What is a stageime

Storimp is a card board that helps you tell stories about how users interact with a product. Stories are also called scripts. This tool was suggested by Jeff Patton in the book User Story Mapping .

Storymap helps you break a complex scenario into many simple stories, visualize the amount of work and plan what to do and when. Developers do not cling to their heads when they are told that in two months they have to do a great job. According to the concept, they understand what is needed to launch the product, and that while it can be postponed.

We use STAMP in all our tasks. We take cards with stories and place them on the board:

• on the sequence of actions: early to the left, later - to the right;
• by priority: the higher the priority of change, the higher the card;
• if the card has details, we hang the more general card above, and under it - details, additional actions;
• if something can be done in several ways, one is at the top and the other options are under it.

For “My Pizza” we have left-to-right major steps: setting - order - production - accounting. Here's what happened:

By this stage we checked whether everything is logical in our thoughts.

First you need to set up the admin panel, then the client has to make an order, we will prepare it, and then we write down the consumed ingredients. These are big steps. We break them into smaller ones: what to do in the admin panel, in what ways the client places an order, and so on. So we checked the whole change process.

Split the task into steps

What you need to do and what can be discarded

When we saw the big picture, we began to move along the stage and ask ourselves questions. At the first stage, we need to remove everything, without which we can run.

What you need to start a new system and cook the first pizza? At the first stage we do not need admin panel. We will take the ingredients from the database or write them directly in the code.

What is the easiest way to place an order? Through the mobile site, there is a simple interface:

What you need to cook a pizza? Show on the trekking composition of pizza.

This is the first tracking test with a curve layout. If the pizza had a lot of ingredients, they were not visible. We quickly noticed and corrected

What can we do without? Do not print the ingredients in the check, do not keep records and refuse statistics.

Refuse unimportant

How to move on the task

Answers to the questions helped to determine the minimum set of stories, without which we can not start. The task has ceased to be difficult and frightening.

Every story we have broken into small parts. For example, for the pizza designer:

You can order your pizza, but nothing can be added to it;
↓
you can add one ingredient;
↓
add a few ingredients, but from the same group. For example, meat or vegetables;
↓
Add ingredients from different groups: meat, vegetables, sauces.

This is how the work went:

• the first two weeks - they made an admin panel with the option of ordering pizza with ingredients from the same group;
• the next two weeks - made a full admin panel and pizza designer with different ingredients;
• another two weeks - launched the tablet "oven".

We tested the system and checked the entire process in our American pizzeria. On the photo, Alain explains how to use the tablet “oven” at the time of launching the system:

We passed the test without fail.

With this functionality, we were ready to accept orders from customers. But the leaders decided that there was no point in launching “My pizza” only in the mobile version of the site. It was necessary to make changes in the desktop version, mobile application and at the box office. After the desktop site, you can launch Your Own Pizza at Oxford, there is only delivery, and after the checkout, in a new restaurant in Southaven. These changes and tests took another month.

2.5 months after the start of work, we launched “Our pizza”. Now she
in second place in popularity after pepperoni. Here Alena attached a screenshot of statistics:

So, we were not mistaken in our assumptions, and Americans really like to experiment and collect pizza from their ingredients.

Build and test the minimum version of the product, run it and only then make improvements

Why don't we use online tools

Storimep is a communication tool, so wall and stickers are best suited for it. They are convenient to create, throw out, add. You can point your finger at them.
Online solutions are a bad option, with them the growth will not work. The board is needed to stand around it and discuss. This is the most valuable tool. In the online communication tool does not work. One will move the cards, others will look or be distracted.

Even if the team works in different cities - this is no excuse to start an online board. Our business analyst Polina lives and works in Syktyvkar. During the discussion of "His pizza" she flew to us, and together we built the stage. And then in her Syktyvkar she made herself the same, only small:

If we changed something in the stage, we immediately transferred it to Polina, and she changed it at home.
After solving the problem, the board can be photographed, digitized, put in CRM - let it lie for history. But as a working tool - only the board and stickers.

Discuss livetime live

Cheat Sheet

When it is impossible to do without the stumen:

• developers put a period of several months, but business cannot wait, and developers do not believe that it can be done faster;
• the task is so big that the developers and team leaders do not know how to approach it;
• to develop a product you need to spend a lot of simultaneous changes, and it is not clear which are needed immediately and which can be postponed.

Here are our rules for working with the concept:

• Use real whiteboard and stickers, no online tools. Storimp is needed to stand around the board, discuss the problem and move the stickers;
• discuss livetime live. If employees work remotely, get together. Then each will recreate the board in his;
• at each step, ask the question "What do you need to do this?" and then "You can do without what?";
• make and test a minimally finished product, even if it cannot be shown to the client. Only after this make improvements.

What you need to quickly launch a product? What can I do without? - two questions, which helps understand the concept