Implementation Planning

SITUATION

For many companies that use waterfall practices, planning is synonymous with documentation. Many, many trees have been killed to describe the detailed inner working of projects that would never be built. When Nokia embarked on their initial forays into software planning, they found that, while paper-based planning had it’s place, they needed a system that would allow them to see the product in action so that they could provide feedback in a timely manner. In addition, it was easier to gather feedback from a large and diverse group of stakeholders if each member of the team could play with the options on the table before offering their commentary.

SOLUTION

Nokia hired Digital Foundry to create a series of prototypes that its stakeholders could access and work with while development was in progress. Digital Foundry collaborated closely with IDEO, Nokia’s design partner, to develop a series of options that could be integrated into a final product. Nokia’s stakeholders reviewed these options and entered their comments into a custom feedback tool Digital Foundry created to facilitate the process. IDEO and Digital Foundry worked with Nokia to prioritize this feedback and adapt the prototype to suit changing requirements.

At the conclusion of the project, Nokia had a fully functional prototype that represented the best ideas of its large group of stakeholders. They had the advantage of knowing that all team members were on the same page regarding the planned enhancements, and that necessary compromises had been reached before a fully fleshed-out version of the project was developed. Perhaps most importantly, the prototype made it easy to jump-start the development process so Nokia was well positioned to bring their new product to market quickly.

RESULTS

Through close collaboration with IDEO and Nokia, Digital Foundry was able to:

• Create a functional prototype that made it easy to understand all the options on the table.
• Build a feedback tool that made it possible to collect timely feedback from a large group of stakeholders.
• Adjust the prototype based on prioritized feedback.