My presentation from Agile Australia 2015 called “It All Starts With An idea: Kicking Off Initiatives For Success” is available on Slideshare.
It was awesome to have such a large audience, particularly as I was up against Dean Leffingwell in the same session. The session was also recorded by InfoQ. Thanks to all those who live tweeted throughout the session, here is a sample:Ideas can come from many different places, but how do we best turn these ideas into initiatives and ensure we are working on the right things at the right time? We tend to throw the idea around, discuss it with our team and management, and undertake a lot of analysis to decide if it’s worth spending time and money on. Unfortunately this approach means we have already spent a bunch of time and money, often without realising it! A number of the early Agile approaches described a lifecycle for kicking off projects, but many of the newer and more popular approaches start with a backlog or an assumption that you are already building something. Go back to basics and look at different approaches for kicking off initiatives and the tools and techniques that make up what is often called the discovery, ideation or concept phase. If your team or organisation has too much work in progress or your pipeline is unclear, then learn (or re-learn) approaches to kicking off the right initiatives so you can ensure you are building the right thing! Learning Outcomes
- Understanding techniques to kick off a project or initiative
- Techniques such as impact mapping, idea canvas, problem pitch, finding features, etc
- Knowing when you should proceed with an idea or park it
- Prioritising ideas
Craig Smith 
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