Financial Technology StartUp

Stage Two

Assumption to be Tested, a potential solution (product) with an assumed value that a customer would be willing to pay for (value proposition).

Objectives & Key Results

  1. Validate the user journey and synthesize the results into prototypes and a site structure.
    • Prototypes
    • Site Structure
  2. Identify the final target customer(s) from existing personas.
    • Personas
  3. Synthesize research results to define the information architecture.
    • Information Architecture
  4. Determine the product's singular core concept and
    • Concept
  5. … related features and functions.
    • Features
  6. Create all necessary documentation for the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
    • Documentation

Success Metrics

Quantitative

Qualitative

Through market research, customer and/or subject matter expert (SME) interviews, a single proposed solution was to be identified and validated worthy of becoming a minimum viable product (MVP).

Process & Results

Product Themes and Ideas

From Stage One's Problems to Solve, the features that our product might offer were categorized into 6 key themes containing a total of 38 ideas.

Observation

"Prioritization of upcoming laws based on region and company's business model … AI models to build a company's compliance status, based on risks, penalties, and past laws, etc."

Worth mentioning - early on my ideation session contributions tended towards describing a solution. Generally described as "too solution-ey", my suggestions were often too specific to a particular solution. They jumped to a predetermined solution and didn't allow for the research process to reveal an answer. Later, I learned this required balance in knowing the difference between talking the way and walking it.

Through ideation sessions and/or interviews, the product themes and ideas were reviewed to determine the minimally-required features and functions the product should offer.

Lo-Fi Prototypes

  1. User Journey
    validate, sequence and assign pain levels
    • Validate each step within the user journey.

    • Sequence all steps taken by a user.

    • Assign specific pain levels for each step and user persona.

  2. Onboarding
    minimally comprehensive
    • Review and validate business model assessment key indicators.

    • Identify differences between `company location` and `jurisdiction`.

    • Determine possible edge cases and/or blindspots within the process.

  3. System Updates
    user confidence
    • Identify key metrics for user confidence.

    • Determine a balance between informative and non intrusive notifications.

    • Confirm update tags/categories are targeted with clear call-to-actions.

Site Structure

Personas

The product themes and ideas, having been used to create the Lo-Fi prototypes and interview materials, validated the user journey, defined the site structure and identified our target customers.

Concepts, Features and Associated Functions

Research focused on the following 3 product concepts and their features, with a total of 11 functions.

The key product features and associated functions were incorporated into presentation materials for the next set of SME interviews.

Hi-Fi Prototypes

  1. Compliance as a Service
    custom processes defined by business profile
    • Filter/sort methods for assessing and prioritizing compliance requirements.

    • Facilitate team collaboration and knowledge sharing within the complexities of the compliance process.

    • Common touch-points, hand-offs and communication methods for implementing an effective regulatory strategy.

"Halt!"

Hi-Fi Prototypes and interviews were left only partially completed and the remaining deliverables were not completed due to the stop determination by Leadership.

Takeaways

Unanswered Deliverables:

  1. Hi-Fi and Clickable Prototypes
  2. Information Architecture
  3. Product Concept
  4. Product Features
  5. Documentation

After one of our 'touch point' meetings, Leadership made the decision to “halt” the project. Oftentimes these calls are made outside of the regular team meetings and without any explanation as to the reasoning. This was a common occurrence. Many potential projects never even made it to Stage Two. During my time at Vertex, only 2 projects ever made it past Stage Two. This is the gate in the stage-gate innovation process.

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