What is an inception deck? How to create one in Agile development and specific examples.

In recent years, Agile, which is becoming mainstream as a development method, has many important processes. One of them is the ” Inception Deck “. This is effective for all parties involved in the project to have a common understanding.

In this article, I will explain what an Inception deck is, what it consists of, and how to create one.

What is an Inception Deck?

Before explaining the Inception deck, let’s quickly review agile development .
Agile is a project management method created as a solution to the weaknesses of the traditional waterfall development method. Agile divides the project into small units and proceeds with the project while repeating development and testing. This allows us to respond flexibly while incorporating feedback. See also
the difference between Agile and Waterfall .

And one of the important things in promoting agile is that the team has a common understanding of the project vision . The Inception Deck helps create this vision.

At the beginning of a project, each member or stakeholder usually has different goals and definitions of success. Creating an Inception deck clarifies various ideas and assumptions. This will help you have a common view of your goals, your audience (personas), and what needs to be developed.

In other words, the Inception Deck is created so that all parties involved in the project can work together with a common understanding of the “project vision” and “business goals” by understanding the overall picture of the project.

Benefits of creating an Inception deck in Agile development

What are the benefits of creating an Inception deck and having a common team “project vision” and “business goal”?

First, the team can understand who the potential users are and where to go. So you can prioritize and sift through what needs to be built and what doesn’t.

Creating an Inception deck also aligns the goals of the team and project stakeholders. Having a common product vision and deepening mutual understanding are often the keys to success.

How to create an Inception Deck in Agile Development

An Inception deck can be created by answering just 10 questions.
All members involved in the project are encouraged to participate.

There are 10 questions below.

Let’s take a closer look.

[Concrete example] Understand the intent of the 10 questions that make up the Inception deck

Question 1: Why are we here?

Question 2: Elevator Pitch

To explain the ‘what, why, how’ to someone who knows nothing about it, in a clear and simple way, usually within 60 seconds (time to get in the elevator).

You can easily create an elevator pitch by filling in the following square brackets.

For [target customer],
[product name] is
[product category].
It has [main advantage, compelling reason to buy], [differentiating features]
from [major competing services] . *Fill in [] to complete the elevator pitch.

Question 3: Package design

Please draw not only the package design, but also the completed image of the product, logos, characters, how to show advertisements and PR, etc.
Visual images are much easier to match than verbal images.

Question 4: NOT To Do List

Teams often get bogged down with questions about scope. A way to reduce scope questions is to agree on out-of-scope.
Teams and stakeholders often have different ideas about what’s out of scope, so it’s important to come to an agreement up front.
In other words, I think in order to clarify “what to do” and “what not to do” in this project.

Question 5: Find your neighbors

A neighbor is someone who is involved in a project.
In addition to the actual team members, we will pick up all the people involved in this project, such as external human resources who can be relied on in case something happens, and the person in charge of the customer.

Question 6: Draw a Solution

Discuss technical matters about what approach is most suitable for carrying out the project. The technical approach may change from the initial idea as the team’s understanding evolves. But having a technical discussion beforehand will help us move forward.

Question 7: Trouble sleeping at night

The key here is to identify dependencies and potential risks. We also consider possible solutions to minimize its impact.
Preparing in advance what kind of measures can be taken in the event of trouble is useful for the subsequent progress of work.

Question 8: Determining the duration

How big is the project? A conversation to determine how much effort this is compared to other work the team has done so far.
This is not a promised delivery date, but to have an image of how much work is roughly done.

Question 9: Trade-off Slider

All projects have constraints such as scope, money, time and quality. What are the most important and least important things for this project?

Scope: Equipped with all functions
Budget: Within budget
Delivery: Delivered on time
Quality: High quality with no bugs

Determining what elements are important and how important they are before starting a project will give you an indicator when problems arise.

Question 10: What do you need and how much of it you need?

What is your budget? How long does it take? Who do you need on your team?
Here, we will check how much cost, period, and skills (number of people) are required.

Please refer to the following article for agile estimation.

Advice on how to use the Inception Deck in Agile development projects

Inception Deck Template

Reference You can check the Inception deck template
(Japanese version) at “Agile Samurai” .

Summary

I explained the benefits of the Inception deck and how to make it. You don’t have to answer all 10 questions, or you can arrange them. But they help build strong teams.

Even if the work is already in progress, start with the part that interests you and try to incorporate it like a game!