Gathering user requirements for SharePoint is no different from doing market research for a product. The technics used in this research can be applied to workshops with business users when planning SharePoint deployments. Acknowledgements to GameStorming and Innovation Games

1. Requirements Gathering can be fun
Using Innovation Games in a SharePoint Project
21 Feb 2012
Alan Marshall
Provoke Solutions
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2. Agenda
• The Process
• Why play games
• The games in action
• When to use games
• Summary
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3. Market Research
• Deploying SharePoint is similar to product
• Follow research model
– What you want to know
– How you will gather it
– Gather requirements
– Analyse results
– Implement
www.cartoonstock.com
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4. Traditional Method limitations
• Questionnaires
– Analytical
– Only answer questions you ask
– Disconnected from personal touch
• People have trouble understanding their problem
• Needs expressed simplistically, lack detail
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5. Why Innovation Games
• Fun way to collaborate
• Understand evolution of solution
• Critical Success Factors and Benefits
• Customer sells the product
• Understand areas for
improvement
• Discover vision and goals
• Engage more parts of the brain
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6. Desert Island
Benefits
• Identify what you value most
• SharePoint feature or an
artefact
• Outputs can be used to set the
priorities or goals
Playing the game
• Flip Chart with picture
• Post-it notes and pens
• Set ground rules
• Business artefact
• SharePoint feature
• People
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7. Show and Tell
Benefits
• Identify what they value most
• Identify what they don’t need
• You have expected a
particular report
• Break the ice
Playing the game
• Ask attendee beforehand to
bring examples of artifacts that
they find invaluable in their
work, useful information or
people that provide assistance
• Each person takes a turn
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8. On the Cover
Benefits
• Establish vision for site
• Cultural phrases
• Imagery for design
• Define high level goals for later
exercises
Playing the game
• Breakdown group into groups
of 4-6
• Give each team an A3 print-out
• Markers
• After 30mins+ each team
presents
Alternative
• Remember the Future
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9. Product Box
Benefits
• customers tap into deep needs
and express them when they
are selling their product back to
you
• selling to the other people in
the room
• they will sell it by promoting the
benefits
Playing the game
• Breakdown group into groups
of 4-6
• Give each team a cardboard
box
• Stickers and pens
• After 30mins+ each team
presents
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10. Prune the Tree
Benefits
• Identify focus of a Phase
• Describe how SharePoint
features are connected:
• Need User Profile for
people directory search
Playing the game
• Print a tree representing
SharePoint workloads
• Add leaves using post-its for
features
• Ask teams to remove x number
of leaves based on phase x
delivery
• After 30mins+ each team
presents
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11. Speed Boat
Benefits
• Avoids all out Complaining
session
• Uncover new solutions
• Discover root cause
Playing the game
• Draw a speed boat or other
image related to customer
• Get people to write what they
don’t like on a post-it notes
• Estimate how much faster it
could go (the pain)
• Discuss each anchor as a
group Slow
Search response
Inaccurac Can’t find times
y forms 11

12. Start Your Day
Jan Mar June Oct Dec
Benefits
• Know when site might be used
for what purpose
• Identify where people have
time
• Feed into project planning to
not clash with dates
Playing the game
• Draw up a suitable timeline
• Start with day then
week, month, year for
each round
• Get people to write what they
do on post-it notes
• Look at interesting trends and
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discuss

13. Me and My Shadow
Benefits
• Discover how users interact
with product
• Identify unexpected uses
• Confirm what is said to action
Playing the game
• Have specific activities you
want to observe
• Use another room or shadow at
work place
• There’s a catch; observation
may change behaviour
• Alternative – The Apprentice
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14. Post up and dot voting
Benefits
• Gather requirements
• Set priorities
Playing the game
• Label flipchart with vision or
goal statements
• Ask everyone to write a specific
requirement on post-it note with
their initials
• Must not be a SharePoint
feature
• Group requirements based on
capabilities
• Give each person 6-8 stars and
ask them to label favourites
• Add a star to each OOB feature
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15. When to use each game
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16. Summary
• You are building a product so market research applies
• Questionnaires limit scope of information gathered
– Useful for initial view
• Traditional methods use left side brain
• Innovation games can be fun and engage people
• Identify new ideas
• Pick the right game for the audience and target information
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17. References
• http://www.innovationgames.com/
• http://www.braingaming.com/
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18. MS Communities
• Win stuff – register
– www.mscommunities.co.nz
• Auckland SharePoint Conference
– Langham Hotel 28th – 29th March
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