In this 6th edition of the Scrumptious Facilitators webinar our guest speaker Ellissa Verseput shares her experiences applying the truth curve to validate value at acceptable risk.

2. CHEE HONG HSIA JASPER ALBLAS KAI STEVENS SJOERD KRANENDONK ZIRYAN SALAYI
ANDY HILES STEVE TRAPPS
www.scrumfacilitators.com

4. $400.000.000 of
investments wasted in
1957!

5. List of failed and overbudget custom software projects

6. THE TRUTH CURVE TO THE RESCUE

7. LET’S INTRODUCE OUR
GUEST SPEAKER

8. Ellissa Verseput
MSc Econometrics & OR
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellissaverseput/
Data Scientist @ Eneco
Part-time role: PO for new product X

9. ENECO
AND
“NEW PRODUCT X”

10. THE LAUNDRY ASSISTANT (*FAKE*)
The 3 USPs
1. Insights: clear overview of washing behaviour and costs
2. Proactive alerts: e.g., when laundry is piling up, when washing machine is
dirty, etc.
3. Carbon neutral: helps the customer to plan their laundry during good
weather conditions, so it can be dried outside in the sun
How does it work?
- You install a smart plug for the washing machine, and then set up a
connection between this smart plug and Eneco, which is slightly
different for each washing machine brand
- From then onwards, washing machine energy data is sent to Eneco
- In the Eneco app, your laundry assistant is available as a new service

11. FROM PM LITERATURE “INSPIRED”
“Risks are tackled up front, rather than
at the end, there are 4 main risks:
1.Value risk
2.Usability risk
3.Feasibility risk
4.Business viability risk”

13. Q1: proof of concept

14. MARKET RESEARCH
(observations, conversations)
Goal: first check of value risk and business viability risk
How: call a few customers to learn about their problems and interest + sketch
market conditions, size, etc. such as which different washing machine brands
are the biggest in NL.
Result: estimation of potential customer reach business case

15. HACKATHON
(aka, our version of paper prototype)
Goal: validating we can (roughly) build it and a user can (roughly) use it. Also,
afterwards, we know which usability and feasibility issues need attention going
forward.
How: during 2 days, hack together with a multidisciplinary team to build a
rough prototype that works for 2 colleagues (test customers). Demo it at the
end of the 2 days.
Result: a demo application

16. WHAT DO YOU THINK WE DID NEXT?
A. we build a fake door landing page
B. we build a first working version in the Eneco app
C. we pivoted

17. Q2 & Q3: Pilot phase

18. TECHNICAL PILOT
(digital prototype)
Goal: proof is (A) feasible and (B) usable for a real customer to setup the
laundry assistant without any help.
How: For the 3 most common washing machine brands, create a prototype
service for connecting the smart plug. Let 30 colleagues that have no
background info about this new proposition participate in the pilot and ask for
feedback afterwards
Result: a working prototype for the onboarding flow for the 3 most common
brands

19. TACKLING VALUE RISK
What do you struggle with most in
validating value?

20. PROPOSITION VALIDATION
(fake door landing page experiment)
Goal:
1. Confidence that customers have a healthy interest in this service
(value risk)
2. We know which of the presented features are more/less important
3. Gathering an interested user base who want to be involved in next
steps
How:
1. Create a landing page on eneco.nl for the new service.
2. Lead potential new customers from the Eneco app to this page via
a campaign banner.
3. On the landing page, let users click “I want this” and only then
explain it’s not available yet, but they can fill in a form
4. Track conversions of each step!
Result: conversions of customers, form data
BTW, phase 2 is to send out a survey to the mail addresses from the
form data
LAUNDRY ASSISTANT
IK WIL DIT

21. Q4: Develop MVP

22. CHALLENGES

23. TACKLING ALL RISKS EQUALLY
Value risk - landing page experiment, follow up survey
Usability risk - hackathon, technical pilot
Feasibility risk - hackathon, technical pilot, data science innovation
Business viability risk - market research, priority within Eneco, no clear business owner

24. Corporate environment makes it
tempting to skip parts of the curve

25. MY THREE TIPS FOR PRODUCT
INNOVATION
1.For every step you do, define clearly which risk(s) you
are tackling - Split your roadmap in different risk tracks
2.Think small, smaller, smallest
3.Try to find opportunities / loop holes in your slower,
corporate organisation to execute steps outside of the
existing corporate structures

26. but to be continued with the next
validation step ;)
THE END...

27. JOIN OUR UPCOMING PSPO-A IN UTRECHT
29-30 Sepember - Physical class!
Did this taste like more learning about product
ownership? Next up in our schedule is the first
PHYSICAL PSPO-A (advanced) class since
COVID-19 started!
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offering virtual editions!
See all our scheduled trainings here
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