Product Outcome Statement in Decide

[jstrothman]

Product Outcome Statement submitted by @lalitha-jonnalagadda Full draft of method

Submission:

• 12/7/2020 12:28:21
• [email protected]
• A new method — I think there should be a separate entry for the method I’m proposing
• Title: Product Outcome statements
• Yes (Has this method been used on 18F projects?)
• Product (Does this method come from a particular chapter’s practice?)
• Yes (Does this method lend itself to a “how-to” format? Can you explain it in a few steps?)
• Not sure (Is this method a variation on any of the existing 18F Methods?)
• No (Any constraints to using this method in a government context?)
• Outcome statements help product teams anchor themselves between the overarching/ambitious vision and individual tasks. Outcome statements guide the product teams in defining value their product is intended to deliver and shifts focus away from output driven development. A well defined outcome statement will include - intended audience, their value hypothesis and measures of success.
• Outcome statements usually follow the template:
  • We hypothesize that [.....] (product/functionality/feature)
  • will deliver [ .....](intended value) .
  • We will know we are successful when [ .....] (measures fo success) ”
• Ideally, embedding these outcome driven statements throughout product development ensure value driven development. At the very least, these outcome statements need to be defined in the product definition (strategy) phase right after a vision statement is crafted
• Product development practices in the government are predominantly output driven vs outcome driven. This method card provides a very simple outline that everyone, including new product teams can draft and shift the team focus into user centric, value driven product development. Drafting these statements requires teams to foster consensus around value and measures of success, over timelines which is typical in an output driven process.

Tasks:

• [ ] Methods team review
• [ ] Plain language edits
• [ ] Create page & supplemental page for examples

Definition of done:

• [ ] Method team decision to include
• [ ] Method uses plain language
• [ ] Approval by original submitter

[jstrothman]

Julie & Lalitha reviewed the Product Outcome Statement & discussed overlap between it and the existing Design Hypothesis Statement. Decision: Either replace (& redirect) Design Hypothesis Statement with more fleshed out Product Outcome Statement, or keep both and differentiate more. If we replace, we'll want to look for places in research-planning related cards to refer to the Product Outcome Statement method.