How inceptions are useful in product development
Inceptions were conceived by Luke Barrett at Thoughtworks in 2004 to align stakeholders and technology teams. Objectives include getting an understanding of the current context, agreeing on project goals, knowing which users we’re building for, having a shared vision, and identifying a high-level of things to do or find out.
Recently in our company, there’s a perception that inceptions are a drawn out gathering of people just to say yes to one thing. It is seen as an exhaustive waste of time, money and effort.
So, what exactly are we learning from this?
As someone who designs and facilitates inceptions, here’s some of the benefits we’re getting that help product development:
Creating an agenda makes us responsive
When we’re planning, we process ideas that might be scrapped or brought in later. Our actual agendas never ends up as planned because we have to think on our feet: being aware of room dynamics, observing activity outcomes, and evaluating how close we are to achieving our objectives. Being transparent with how we respond shows how to adapt and change based off of new information, which is strongly reflected in how we deliver the work.
Observing others builds better relationships
When we’re facilitating, we’re constantly observing. We’re using the discussions to understand who has certain knowledge so we can seek out the right expertise afterwards. We’re using team activities to evaluate how responsive a person is to better understand how we’ll work with them in future. We’re noting the type of questions asked to know how much we need to bring them along the journey with us.
Inception activities directs clearer conversations
In our company, we constantly look at the big picture. We focus on customer and business problems and identify where our assumptions are. The activities in inceptions steer questions and conversations to be about overall users’ experience instead of features and grand ideas not rooted in real problems. These set the foundation for future discussions that help the product development.
Supporting people to make relevant decisions
We should be wary of how different activities make people perceive what decisions they can make. If clear expectations aren’t set, stakeholders might decide the product or design details in advance, removing the team’s autonomy. Introducing a flat working structure in a large hierarchical organisation can disempower people. We should support people to bring in their capabilities and make the right decisions at the appropriate level.
Running inceptions are, in a way, a privilege. To get the time and effort of everyone to run these sessions are not what many companies can/will do. Though it can be costly, it’s a space where these subtle learnings will become incredibly valuable.
“You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site.” — Frank Lloyd Wright
We never know less than what we do at the beginning of anything, so let’s take the time to empower each other, collaborate more closely, and continue a meaningful dialogue on building products better.
This post was made better by these people and their brilliant brains.
Christopher James, Anjalie Nawaratne, James Cook and Rebecca Hansen
