[MUSIC] Let's look at an example of adaptive planning executed by an organization called Nordstrom Innovation. [MUSIC] >> I'm JB Brown, the Nordstrom Innovation lab manager, and this is the lab. [MUSIC] We work on one week experiments, somebody will have an idea and we'll find a way to figure out how prove if the idea is going to work. And this week the Innovation Lab is going to be building an iPad app with customer feedback as we go through the week. We wanted to work in a store to make sure the we were getting customer feedback as we work. So that we were never working on anything that wasn't valued by the customer and only doing things that are delivering value. So we'll be building a feature and testing it until we get to the point where we have something that's good enough that we can just leave. And leave the iPad behind and have this new thing that customers can use. This is the worlds first flash build, it's a flash mob where a software team shows up and builds an application in a surprise location. This is a Nordstrom Innovation Lab, and we're at the flagship store in downtown Seattle. Right now the team is just setting up their equipment to get started. We're going to build an iPad app that helps customers pick the best pair of sunglasses for them. We really don't know what the features are yet. We're going to use customer feedback as we go along throughout the day and the rest of the week in order to build the best thing. >> So the next thing we're going to do is a user story map. So we are going to sit here and together outline all the steps that a customer will take, and actually even beforehand how they buy sunglasses. Like what are the different things that they might do and how that process might change if we have this application. >> And then we'll actually dig into what we have to build in order to support that process. >> So, now that we've done a card mapping we're going to do a paper prototype. And this is something that we commonly do in the Innovation Lab. It's a great way to show what we'd like to do in a rough prototype that we can easily throw out, change, alter, based on feedback from the customers. I'll continue building individual paper slides. And our user experience specialist, Telle, will bring the prototype to a customer and say, okay, I have this app, and this is a paper version. I'd like you to kind of use it like you would normally use an app. And you can press things, interact with them, and then she'll change out the pages based on how the customer uses it. So it's a similar experience to the iPad, only an analog version. >> So it's day two and we have our first working prototype of this app. And how it works is I take my first pair of sunglasses, put it on, a picture, all right. And then I want to compare it to this other pair I've got right here. Put these on. [MUSIC] Take another picture. And I can just pull these up like this and see which one I like better. >> While Telle and Kim have been talking to people and doing paper prototypes, we've been coding, building an iPad. We take a stab at something. We look at the paper prototypes that they put together. We might take one at a time. Usually, we come to the board and we grabbed the most important feature and we started implementing it. The really cool thing with this flash build is that we have actual, real customers. Just today we delivered four or five different, separate features, and I've delivered it, swapped the iPad with Telle. She'd go and talk to a customer, and ten minutes later I had feedback from real customers about this thing that I delivered, and it changed how we did the next thing. >> Okay, so I'm going to show you what we've been working on the last five days. We've added quite a few features over the week. You take a picture, multiple pictures of the customer. And then you can pull them up, and tap the first one, you can see it larger. And then tap the second and do a side by side comparison of each glass next to each other. We also added a feature where you can rename the picture. Because we heard from salespeople if a customer is trying on quite a lot of glasses, it's helpful to be able to know what order they were taken in, and also rename if you want with the brand or some distinguishing feature about the glass. Another feature we added was the ability to zoom. You can zoom in and really get a good detailed look at the frames side-by-side. Also, you see one of the pictures larger if you want, to just, better view of one frame. You can flip the camera view as well. Face it forward so the salesperson can take a picture of it like this, or you can flip the camera so you can take a picture of yourself facing forward. And then at the end of it all we have a button called New Customer, which just erases all of the images and allows the salesperson to start with a new customer. >> One of the challenges with software is when are you done, right? And I think the answer's really it depends on how much time you have. At least the most important things got done. So this was time box to a week, and we did a weeks worth of work and it seems like what we have now is something that makes customers happy, and addresses the main problems and something that we can track, we have metrics on. So, I think we're going to call that a day. >> Now, it's more than likely you don't have the resources of Nordstrom Lab, or the cooperation of a major retailer as shown in this video. That doesn't keep you from replicating the process though. You may not be able to do it in five days. Okay, do it in five months, a year, whatever. You may not be able to use a retail store, or you may. But you can do it at the beach, at a sports arena, at a barbecue in the backyard. The point is, design a process around your resources that allows you to take action in a designed disciplined way that generates information, that allows you to learn. To gain insights so that you move closer to some optimal solution. [MUSIC]
