Stopping Rework & Scope Creep

I’ve gained wisdom through my winding path in high tech, which has provided me with ample lot of experience with what has worked well in the past (and what hasn’t!). My definition of working well is a harmonious extended team that delivers both business and user outcomes worth celebrating.

In this case study, we’ll explore some of the process opportunities that I have observed at Chase, and a few examples for how I’ve challenged my teams to make material Impact on how the work gets done.

Requirement gaps / Rework

At Chase, high fidelity mockups have been used as the pivotal tool for executives to articulate a high priority feature and function. This ‘solution’ often: 

• Replaces common ROI assessments

• Doesn’t identify root problems to be addressed

• Fails to define success other than GA 

We have too easily taken an ask at face value rather than offering that solution and alternatives from which our execs may be better able to articulate their need. 

This hiFi proxy has another problem— it narrowly visualizes the executive vision, but fails to consider the broader scope & context within which this new feature will live. 

Step 1 - Demonstrate the Problem

In order to get our product and tech leadership aligned (my role has been design leadership at Chase), it was important to show the problem as it manifests on most projects. I asked one of our content designers to walk me through her last three projects, and the exact moment when she realized that we missed a key requirement. I took notes (illustration) as she walked through the prior two months(!) of sessions she had had with our product partner to create useable requirements. 

For each meeting, one could easily see where there was some discoverable tidbit that had been missed. By May 20th, she had realized that the categorization we needed to express needed to align with another team. We then had to reset, restart our information architecture / process from the beginning. 

We did the same exercise for the two other projects, and equipped with a few then-current case studies, I was able to advocate for a better approach. 

Step 2 - Socialize & Align

When I shared these examples with my product partner, he was appropriately disgusted. The fact that we had wasted two month, and that I could give example-after-example led to a breakthrough conversation. 

Our shared takeaways:

1 - Our product partners needed to increase the frequency of touch bases - more like daily standups than weekly reviews. This likely meant fewer, better prioritized projects for shorter durations.

2 - We all needed to work together to understand our very complex systems and processes (the largest bank in the US, after all) - that meant no more product acting as a go-between with design, analytics, legal and development.

3 - We needed to have real kickoffs, with stakeholders, and the whole team present, on site, for a day or two. Not some multi-tasking, poorly attended series of sessions.

4- Regular check ins, with blockers, rather than blue sky UI reviews with new requirements based on subjective points of view.

This has become the new way of working. When a project is of strategic significance, we have started having real kick offs, in person, with phones and computers off. These kick offs are led by product, with the outcome of a complete set of requirements that all align to - including multiple releases as a program if required. Edge cases, research hypotheses, technical architecture, timelines, even UI proposals are all fair game. 

Outcome

We are now putting the finishing touches on a third strategic project using this model. The main outcomes are:

• A happier, better connected team that works together, not in silos.

• While we haven’t yet measured time to release, it is clear that the design team is more productive. A six month project got a fresh start and ‘more progress it two days’ than in its entire history.

• Program level thinking, not MVP level UI tweaks. Chase is an omni-channel organization, and we need to look beyond the UI and into the broader context 

The UX team would say that we are still struggling with prioritizing tactical priorities, but that we are clearly on a better path for the larger, more strategically important work.