Working Backwards - Leading organisations achieve growth by marrying customer-obsession with a modern technology strategy. In this upcoming webinar, we’ve partnered with AWS to bring you exclusive insights from one of the world’s most innovative companies, Amazon.

1. Customer-centric innovation
enabled by cloud
© 2020 ThoughtWorks
Nic Smythe • Director Customer Experience, Product & Design
ThoughtWorks Australia

2. 7000+
Thoughtworkers
14
Countries
43
Offices
25+
Years
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

3. © 2020 ThoughtWorks

4. Fast networks
Powerful
computers
The Cloud
Pace of digital
disruption
Increased
customer
expectations
eXtreme
Programming
Agile
DevOps &
Continuous
Delivery
CULTURE TECHNOLOGY MARKET
© 2020 ThoughtWorks
Tech is no longer the constraint
…in fact, technology often outpaces strategy and design
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

5. DELIVERVALIDATEDISCOVER DEFINE
Customer need
Market
opportunity
Improvement
opportunity
Hypothesis
MVP
Build
Feedback
Prioritise
Evolve
Bringing customers into the
innovation process
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

6. REVOLUTIONISING PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
A DECADE OF INNOVATION AT SCALE
NEW CUSTOMER OFFERINGS AT SPEED
AWARD-WINNING PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION

7. Think big.
Start small.
Act fast.

11. To encourage fact
and evidence-based
decision making
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

12. To encourage fact and
evidence-based decision making
DECISION
MAKERS
FACTS &
EVIDENCE
● Policy makers
● Governments
● Investors
● Engineers
● The public
● Media
● Academics
● Agreed data
● Auditability
● Transparency
● Modelling
● Forecasts
● Simulations
● Constraints
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

13. To encourage fact and
evidence-based decision making
DECISION
MAKERS
FACTS &
EVIDENCE
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

14. To encourage fact and
evidence-based decision making
DECISION
MAKERS
FACTS &
EVIDENCE
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

15. DECISION
MAKERS
FACTS &
EVIDENCE
COMPLEX, OPAQUE
MODELS
ENORMOUS VOLUMES
OF DATA
DISAGREEMENT &
MISALIGNMENT
GATEKEEPING &
VESTED INTERESTS
To encourage fact and
evidence-based decision making
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

16. DELIVERVALIDATEDISCOVER DEFINE
Starting small, acting fast
Customer need
Market
opportunity
Improvement
opportunity
Hypothesis
MVP
Build
Feedback
Prioritise
Evolve
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

17. DELIVERY
How is our product being used?
What do we do next?
VALIDATION
Will our product be
viable, feasible and
desirable?
DISCOVERY
Is this a problem
worth solving?
DEFINITION
Can we build a
product to solve it
really well?
Involve customers at every stage,
but ask different questions
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

18. VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
Is this a problem
worth solving?
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

19. VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
Is this a problem worth solving?
STRATEGY
Is it worth your
time to solve it?
CUSTOMER
Who has the pain?
COMPETITION
Who or what are the
existing alternatives?
PROBLEM
What are you solving?
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

20. VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
Is this a problem worth solving?
© 2020 ThoughtWorks
● Users & personas
● Customer journeys
● Pains & gains
● Elevator pitches

21. VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
Can we build a
product to solve it
really well?
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

22. VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
UNDERSTANDING
SOLUTIONS
ASSUMPTIONS
PRIORITISATION
HYPOTHESES
EXPERIMENTS
Can we build a product to solve it
really well?
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

23. VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
Can we build a product to solve it
really well?
a zone overview
As an
I want
So that
investor
I can identify
Investment opportunities for specific
technology in a zone
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

24. VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
Can we build a product to solve it
really well?
© 2020 ThoughtWorks
● Sketches → wireframes → mockups
● Story-maps → epics → user stories
● Technical architecture
● Risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies

25. VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
Is our product
viable?
Feasible?
Desirable?
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

26. Building working software
VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
Aligned to core values:
● Fast feedback
● Repeatability
● Simplicity
● Clean code
… & our core practices
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

27. Enabled by cloud
● Provision and configure data storage
● Implement services for aggregation
and filtering
● Add security and encryption
● Optimise query performance
● Implement API service
● Provision hosting for web app
● Build queries
● Build web application
Amazon ElasticSearch Service
Amazon Simple Storage
Service (S3)
AWS AppSync
VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

28. Helped by cloud
services, libraries &
frameworks
Google Maps ECharts
React
RxJS
ApolloCircleCI NodeJS
Python
VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

29. You’re sending your
product out into the most
hostile environment
known to humankind
(and it might be out there a while)
VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

30. VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
How is our product
being used?
What do we do
next?
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

31. VALIDATEDEFINEDISCOVER DELIVER
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

32. Customer-obsessed innovation,
enabled by cloud
● Think big, start small, act fast
● Bring customers into every stage of the innovation lifecycle
● Ask the right questions to learn the right things
● Build something adaptable and resilient
● Leverage the cloud ecosystem
● The only constant is change, optimise for it
© 2020 ThoughtWorks

33. Thank you
nsmythe@thoughtworks.com
© 2020 ThoughtWorks