Incept the solution and implement it

Once a feature answering an unmet need has entered the inception pipe, the product and tech owners can then organize the inception and implementation of that feature.

1- Incept the selected solution

When we have chosen the feature we want to implement, we need to incept it: understand with devs the technical constraints, draw the user flow and mockups (how we want this new feature to look like), break the job to be done into small stories and order them into a "story map", plan how we are going to release the new feature, how we communicate about it with users.

Also the team should come up with a release plan:

• Do we do a full launch, or a soft launch only informing some beta testers, before then doing a full launch?

• What communication strategy do we plan when we release? Some articles on the topic? A note in our newsletters? A news on our websites? Which campaign? etc.

• When and who will update the user guides? How do we inform the support team about the new feature and train them?

• Plan the implementation tasks, so if soft launch, how do we recruit beta testers, set them up, collect their feedback, etc.

The product owner of the feature is in charge of communicating all that work by specifying the epic in the product feature backlog, with for instance:

• link to the mockups and user flow

• image of the story map

• key points of the release plan

• key points of the implementation plan (support, communication, etc.)

2- Implement the solution

The product owner might want at that stage to open a dedicated project board to be able to follow the implementation process of that specific feature.

The product owner will feed the delivery pipeline with new issues picking them from the story maps, in order to make sure the features are released as quickly and efficiently as possible.