imagine the possible milestones and events that the product would go through after it was developed and put into production

2022-05-01

Futurespective

Outcome

This is an activity that helps the participants imagine the possible milestones and events that the product would go through after it was developed and put into production. As a result, risks and their probablities can be mapped to help better plan for the production rollout.

Audience

If the development community is too large, then invite the Tech leads and Project & Programme managers. Otherwise, the more people participate, the better the risk mapping will be, along with a better sense of shared ownership.

When to use

Not to be used too early in the development of the product, as the possible outcomes would not have settled in people’s minds. It’s suggested to invoke this activity once people have deployed a few milestones to the integration environment, and have made a few demos.

Activity

Participants write the milestones and events as though it was a retrospective held after the successful launch of the upcomnig version.

Preparation

Whiteboard, sticky notes, sharpies for participants and dry-erase markers.

Process

• Use green cards to denote what went well
• Use red cards to denote what did not go well. However, since this is a futurespective that describes a successful outcome, these red cards should be accompanied by green cards that describe what actions the team took in order to overcome what went wrong. This is what distinguishes a regular retro from this retro.
• Add green cards to describe wildcards, which are things that helped the teams. e.g: a team pique-nique.
• Collect the red cards and map them onto a graph of low/high impact on the Y axis, and low/high probability on the X axis.
• Reveal the timeline (starting today, ending at the deadline date), and ask the participants to collaboratively place the red cards in high/high with their solutions on the timeline.

Timing

This usually takes 2-3 hours.