Your grade for this assignment will be determined based on a presentation during lecture and a final PDF of your slide deck:

• A3 overview slides. A PDF of the A3 slide deck should be posted to Canvas by only the team leader by 11:59pm on Friday May 10. 

• A3 presentation. All teams will present their A3 slide deck live on May 7 or May 9. After getting feedback in class, teams can continue to refine their slide deck until the final deadline on May 12. Teams must present in under 6 minutes and will have up to 4 minutes for  feedback and discussion. 

• The team's A3 Google folder should be updated to include all your interim process work. Please make sure the folder is updated by the end day on May 10. 

• Fill out the team peer evaluation.  Everyone fill out the A3 team peer evaluation by end of day on May 10. 

This assignment starts in Week 4 and finishes at the end of Week 6. The final graded deliverable is a PDF of your slide deck posted to Canvas (by only one team member) by 11:59pm on May 10. All other dates below are interim deadlines to share work-in-progress drafts. Please share drafts as links in the Team Dashboard before class on the days we are scheduled to share and critique (drafts are not graded).  In brackets, we include interim deadlines and guidelines on the # of homework hours and teammates to allocate to each step. This assignment adds up to ~6 hours of work per teammate outside of lecture and studio.  

• 1. Prepare a team Miro template for collaborative brainstorming.
     Take stock of your target stakeholders/users/customers, as well as secondary and tertiary stakeholders. Create a list of all potential stakeholders and define key characteristics for each (e.g., age range, occupation, activities, opinions, proclivities, and objectives). For each stakeholder, write a list of potential needs/desires and then assess where those fall along the spectrum offered by Blank and Dorf 2013 (i.e., the stakeholder ... has a need, is aware of having a need, has been actively looking for a solution, has assembled a solution out of parts, has a budget to put towards this need...).  Then revisit your mission statement and "How Might We" questions from A2. Make sure your questions are generative and diverse and address the various needs of your stakeholders. That is, your questions should be good for ideation and cover different angles.   [in-class activity on April 25] 

Use this information to populate the Miro collaborative brainstorming template (click on the template title at the top, then create a new account if you don't have one, then "Duplicate" to make a copy of this for your own team).  During studio on April 26, teams will be grouped with other teams for a series of brainstorming exercises on each other's projects.  Ultimately the goal here is to generate many plausible solutions for the team's HMW questions.  Aim to generate 20+ potential concepts for each HMW question so that you can select the top six problem-solution pairs for the next step. [in class activities on April 25 and April 26, and keep going outside of class; ~1 hour for whole team]. 

• 2. Create scenarios and storyboards for interviews. Continue using the Miro template to select 6 concepts that you want feedback on from potential customers. A "concept" includes both an articulated need/desire, as well as a solution for how to satisfy that gap.  For each concept, write a short scenario (1-2 paragraphs) that describes the problem through the perspective of fictional characters (also known as personas) that represent your stakeholders. Each written scenario should describe a problematic situation, as well as, a technology, product, service, or other solution that tries to address that situation.  Note: if you are worried about "giving away" your great ideas, consider the following:  1) Ideas usually have little value until you put them into action.  Your feedback providers are not likely to take your ideas and run with them.  Even if they do, you have a head start.  2) Consider offering some "strawman" solutions— scenarios that intentionally push on individual, social, and cultural boundaries—just to see how people react. Instead of offering an eloquent solution, present an outlandish solution that gets people to reflect on and talk about what they really need. 

Then portray these as simple illustrated storyboards. Each storyboard should include a title that summarizes the problem and ~four frames (3-6 frames in length) that clearly communicate 1) the context (setting, stakeholders, etc.), 2) the problem, 3) the proposed solution, and 4) a resolution (how the stakeholder feels after using the proposed solution).  These ideas will be shared online so be sure to use digital text for any dialogue or scripts, as handwritten text can be hard to read.  You can illustrate each frame on paper and then compile them into a digital storyboard, or use one of the digital storyboarding tools listed above. You can find some examples of storyboards here.  [Share drafts of scenarios & storyboards in class on Tuesday April 30, and refine storyboards in time for interviews; ~2 hours for whole team]. 

• 3. Prepare for interviews. Starting back in A2, your team could start recruiting potential interviewees for this assignment. Create and post recruitment messages in social media, online forums, and special interest groups. Your message should say who you are, what you are trying to learn and why, and what you might offer in exchange for a 30-minute interview on Zoom or in-person.  Offers of small gifts (e.g., a coffee or gift card) are not required, but can be a very helpful incentive for people with limited time. As best as possible, your interviewees should align with your target stakeholder, but you may also branch out to other stakeholders in your value flow model. Write an interview guide with (mostly) open-ended questions. Include general questions about the stakeholder's current practices and pain point related to your topic. Towards the end of the interview guide, include questions related to your storyboards.  [Share a draft of your interview questions in class on Tuesday April 30, and refine based on feedback after practice interviews;  ~1 hours for whole team].  

  4. Conduct and analyze interviews with stakeholders.  Conduct at least five interview sessions with key stakeholders. Use your interview questions as a guide, but also ask followup questions based on what they say.  The interviews should focus primarily on potential needs/desires, rather than any specific idea you have in mind. You may conduct your interviews face-to-face or through video chat (e.g. Zoom). When possible, you should record the interviews so that you and your team can watch it afterwards. Make sure you get verbal consent from your interviewees to record the meeting and to potentially use the recording in your A3 presentation.  Consent should be obtained both before you start recording and after you start the recording (so that you have it on record).  After the interview, share the recordings with your team so that other team members can watch and contribute their perspectives. To distribute learning better, have a different team member watch and take notes on other teammates’ interviews so that everyone has a chance to both interview and analyze an interview. As a team, summarize the key insights you've learned about the problem and the stakeholders. Include excerpts of short videos to highlight your findings in your A3 presentation. [Aim to conduct interviews between April 30 and May 7;  ~2 hours for all team members].  

  5. Update your competitive analysis. Over the past two weeks, you likely learned about new competitors you missed before. Or, your team pivoted to a different idea and now you need to map out the competitive landscape of the new "jobs to be done".   Look at your 5-6 scenarios and your How Might We questions, and scour the web looking for alternative solutions to your framed problems.  Same as before, take notes on key features, advantages, and limitations for each competitor and then illustrate an argument for what's available and what's missing in the current competitive landscape. Refer to A2 for more detail and resources on competitive analyses. [Finish in time for A3 presentations on May 7 and May 9;  ~1 hours for 2 team members].   

  6. Analyze and select your best project idea.   Review and synthesize all the information from potential users/customers from the survey and interviews. Think about the competitive space. Generate new ideas and pivot if necessary. Pick an idea that offers value to (or value exchange between) some target customer(s) and that has a plausible business model. Update your hypotheses and mission based on the concept you select. [Due in time for A3 presentations; ~1 hour for whole team]

  7. Craft a mission statement:  Write a single sentence that describes your team's mission within your chosen topic. This is a preliminary declaration that should be iterated on during every stage of the project. A mission statement says why an organization exists, what its overall goal is, what kind of product or service it provides, and its primary customers or market.  For example, "Our company, CrashHelper, aims to provide drivers personalized emergency support in the case of an automobile accident."  [Finish in time for A3 presentations;  ~1/2 hour for 2 team members].  

  8. Update your SET Analysis and Value Flow Diagram:  This class stresses the importance of iterating and pivoting to respond to customer input. After every major iteration, your team should update your underlying hypotheses in order to stay in sync as a team. If necessary, update your team's SET analysis (see A1). Update (or create a new) Value Flow Diagram (see A2).  Your initial value flow diagram visually illustrates the current flow of value between key stakeholders. To make it clear how your business concept can be disruptive, make a second diagram to hypothesize how your new business concept could fundamentally change the marketplace.  [Finish in time for A3 presentations;  ~1 hour for 1-2 team members].  

  9. Prepare team's A3 presentation. Create a short presentation to share your team's ideation process, top storyboards, as well as responses and insights from the interviews.  Share your mission statement and then pitch your revised business concept.  Include the Value Flow Diagram for the current and envisioned model of value flow.  Talks can be up to 6 minutes (plus up to 4 minutes more for feedback and discussion). After the talk, team can iterate and submit the final slides to Canvas as a PDF. [Be ready to give talks on May 7 or May 9, and turn in final slide deck by May 10; ~2 hours for whole team]

Include slides for:

• 9. • • Overview of topic and motivation (here's where craft your narrative for problem space, your "Shark Tank" pitch)

       • 1 slide on who you interviewed and why

       • 1-2 slides to show top storyboards and startup opportunities (based on interview feedback)

       • 2-3 slides to reveal key insights from interviews

       • 1-2 slides to overview key competitor(s) and their limitations

       • 1 slide for Value Flow Diagram showing the current value flow (before your concept)

       • 1 slide for Value Flow Diagram with envisioned value flow (your idea should appear here).

       • 1 slide for mission statement and explain next steps for your team

       • Extra slides:  as many slides as needed to document the teams research and design process. Include all storyboards, screenshots of analysis documents, interview guides, recruitment plans, notes, etc. These slides do not need to be presented during the live talks in week 6. We will refer to these slides to assess your teamwork and process. 

  10. Fill out the team peer evaluation.  Your team has just completed two assignments together. Everyone is required to fill out the A3 team peer evaluation. [Due May 10 by 11:59pm] 

• • Required reading: Davidoff, 2007, "Rapidly Exploring Application Design through Speed Dating" (if you already read Davidoff in another class, you may read Dow 2011 instead)

  • Required reading: Ries, 2011, "The Concierge MVP", Ch. 6 

  • See the Readings page for more optional books, talks, and videos. 

  • Storyboard authoring tools: Storyboard That, Canva, Storyboarder, Plot

  • Paper-based storyboard templates: printable 2x2 grid, StudioBinder templates, WordLayouts

  • Miro for collaborative brainstorming.  Assignment template.

Students will be graded as a team for A3. This includes materials in the team folder, as well as the overview slides submitted as a PDF to Canvas.  In addition, teams will be subject to the Late Assignments policy, as specified on the Logistics page.  All students must fill out a team peer evaluation at the end of this assignment.  

• Collaborative brainstorming (15%)

  • • Does the team prepare a collaborative brainstorming environment in time to use in class?

    • Does the team provide a clear and concise overview of their target customer, insights from A2, and their key open How Might We questions?

    • Does the team actively participate in ideation sessions for their own and other teams? 

• Creating scenarios and storyboards (25%)

  • • Are the team's storyboards legible and communicative?  Is their a title that explains the team's hypothesis about the problem?  Are the panel captions written in text and free of grammar errors?  Do storyboards take no longer than 30 seconds each to read? 

    • Do the storyboards effectively illustrate compelling ideas?

    • Does each of the team's 6 storyboards explore unique problems and/or solutions? (are they diverse within the selected topic?)

• Preparing, conducting, and analyzing interviews (25%) 

  • • Does the team conduct at least 5 interviews with people who are key stakeholders related to hypothesized problem(s)?

    • Does the team prepare effective questions and storyboards to guide the interviews? 

    • Do the interviews yield useful feedback from stakeholders?

    • Does the team pull out valuable insights, critiques, and lessons learned from the interviews that will help the team refine or pivot their business concept?

• Updating the competitive analysis, value flow, and mission statement (15%)

  • • Does the team go back to iterate and refine their earlier hypotheses based on insights from the video-based survey? 

    • Does the Value Flow Diagram show a model of the system both before/after to illustrate how your concept can potentially disrupt the market?  

    • Does the mission capture the overall goals of the startup solution and the "job to be done" in a succinct manner?

• Preparing the A3 overview slides and talk (20%)

  • • Are the team presentations (overview slides and talk) clear, insightful, and to the point? 

    • Do the presentations concisely cover the problem setting, show potential business concepts (storyboards), deliver useful insights from the video survey, and highlight a promising direction?

    • Does the team iterate on the details after getting in-class feedback?