me325 Software Design Experiences
April 9 Exercise – Instructor Notes:
This exercise is designed to practice business process analysis along a real business case
study. It highlights the importance of understanding the business process from a variety
of angles – in this case the stakeholders, and the business users. It will highlight the
differences between the information obtained from the managers of a process vs. the true
end users, and the importance of engaging with end users in their natural environment.
The homework assignment will focus on defining the insights gained.
NOTE: It is essential that you will have watched the City of Mountain business
process videos before facilitating this exercise and are familiar with the related
artifacts. The artifacts are marked with letters in the video that correspond to the
artifact in your hand-out folder.
Begin this exercise by explaining:
The Design Project: You have been tasked by the City of Mountain View to provide an
improved solution to their Utility Billing and Account management process. The first
step is to gain a good understanding of this process as it exists today and gain insights
that inspire an improved solution design.
Background for the exercise: One way to understand business processes is to explore
the stakeholders’ (managers, IT, Accounting, etc) perspectives. We met with the City of
Mountain View Accounting and Public Services manager in a conference room, which
resulted in our understanding the business process as follows (see student handout)
Then we conducted a number of contextual interviews with the business users involved in
the process.
Instructions:
Students will now watch a short video describing ONE sub-process of the Utility
Account Management and Billing Service of the City of Mountain View. The video will
show a business user(s) performing their tasks related to this process. Explain that this
information was gathered using a contextual inquiry approach. We also shortened the
video from the original capture.
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Ask students to take notes closely observing and listening to the business
user and others stepping through the business process. This emphasizes
that taking good notes is essential. It also will demonstrate that everyone
will note different aspects.
Give students a few moments to examine related artifacts – in fact you
may stop the video so they can study the artifact in context of what they
just saw.
Now facilitate the creation of a narrative or simple diagram of the
activities in this process based on student’s notes. Encourage them to think
about tools used, the physical environment, and the user’s body language
– all of which may provide insights into solution design.
Open up for discussion – see below.
Discussion Points:
o How did the business user information differ from what stakeholders told
us?
o What type of information did the in context observation provide that you
would not get from a meeting with their manager? Why may you consider
both views?
o What next steps may you take?
o What other aspects might you consider before defining a software
solution?
Conclusion:
Lastly – show the actual process diagram that we created AFTER we had met with the
business users (handout) which is much more detailed and elaborate than what we were
able to learn from our stakeholder meeting.
Homework:
Explain that students will have another opportunity to view the video and individually
outline insights, needs and opportunities that they discovered (beyond the basic business
process). These will form a base for discussion during the next session.
Key Takeaways:
When analyzing business processes and identifying solutions:
 Assemble a 360 view by considering a variety of stakeholders, including users
involved in the process, since there is a big difference between the official process
and the real process
 Use contextual inquiry as one user research technique to understand users in the
context of their work environment. People like to be listened to – an important
aspect of user research
 Additional conversations will be needed after the first round of interviews
 Capture as many artifacts as possible during the user research
 Good interview techniques involve active listening, open-ended questions, a
beginner’s mind
From other file:
d.school April 09 Lecture: Business Process Overview – Exercise
(This exercise builds on pre-reading assignments illustrating examples of process
mapping, and user data analysis)
In this exercise you will develop an understanding of integrated business processes and
how they are one step in documenting a problem space later to be addressed with a
holistic solution. You will
- Practice analysis of user data
- Identify user roles involved in collaborative business processes
- Map out a high-level process flow of a collaborative business process
- Consider other factors that may influence solution design
(Insert process diagrams here)
Watch the “highlights” video, and note down key observations such as:
a. User roles
b. Tasks
c. Environment
d. Tools used
Create a simple process flow document using one of the techniques from your
pre-reading assignment
Discuss: What other information may you require to further define the
solution space ? How may you go about gathering this information?
1.
2.
3.
Homework:
The homework assignment is intended to provide you with a deeper understanding of one
business process, and user role(s) involved in this process which will lay the groundwork
for future solution design.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Watch the deep dive video and note down
a. Users, their characteristics, working environment and goals
b. Tasks performed
c. Tools used
Examing the artifact for the process for additional information.
Map out the business process(es) including roles, goals, tasks.
Prepare a brief presentation (<5min) that describes the user role(s) and
business process(es).
d.school April 11 Lecture: The good & bad of Software – Exercise
This exercise begins thinking about the solution design of an existing process, assuming
there a no existing software solutions in place. Based on the previous exercise, begin
thinking about functions, objects and data fields for your business process.
For your business process, start mapping our software wireframe using one of the
techniques introduce in the pre-reading materials. Think about:
a. Objects
b. Functions
c. Fields
(Student teams then present their exercise which leads to a discussion of how these point
solutions might by put together to create an integrated solution design –> issues such as
data duplication, process overlaps, inconsistent user-interfaces, service interface
incompatibility will arise)