This toolkit will take you from complex frustration to an AI product roadmap, ready for design and implementation.
The AI Digital Strategy Toolkit is a comprehensive guide that provides step-by-step instructions to develop a practical AI product roadmap. It includes various sections such as Discover and Empathize, Define the Challenge, Concept Ideation, and Digital Product Strategy. By following this toolkit, you can move from a state of confusion to a well-defined AI product that is ready for design and development.
The purpose of this template is to build solutions with a purpose in a rapid way. While there are many “cool” AI tools coming to the market, you still must have a plan of action and a problem to be solving for you and the user. This template will remove some of the stress that comes with designing and implementing a tool without answers to important questions. You may find yourself throwing too many routes or call to actions at the user without a genuine and human centered purpose.
Get access to exercise overviews, demos, and hands on assignments to take you from your current challenge to a clear vision and digital strategy in less than a week!
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| Task | Goal | Avg. Time Needed |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | 30 min | |
| Internal Assessment | Truly understand why you are wanting to fix the problem. | 20 - 30 min |
| Empathize | 4 - 7 hrs | |
| Audience Needs | Understand who the end users are and what the end users goals and needs are. What are their “job to be done”? | 1:30 hr |
| Empathy Maps | Empathize with the users “job to be done” and put yourself in their shoes | 20 min (per user) |
| Current State Workflow | Map out the current stages and steps in trying to accomplish the job | 1 hour |
| Interviews (5 users) (Recommended but optional) | Validate assumptions by asking non leading questions to end users and uncover if you were correct and if anything new stands out | 2:30 - 3 hrs |
| Pain Point Mapping | As the interviews are going on, write down pain points that stand out. Any frustration or “sigh”, feel free to dig into that pain point to understand it. Then map to the workflow to see a “heat map” | 30 min |
| Define | 1:30 hrs | |
| Problem Theming | Find similar and interconnected pain points where there is a common theme. EX. Maybe it is an issue created by poor access to current data | 30 min |
| How Might We’s | Take an optimistic approach to reframing the problems into opportunities | 30 min |
| Challenge Statement | Compile everything to this point into a challenge statement. We aim to solve: (problem), for: (users), who struggle with: (pains), and solving this will: (benefits) | 30 min |
| Concept Ideation | 5 hrs | |
| Art of the Possible | Take the challenge and go observe the world and see how others outside of your industry have solved this challenge. Be inspired before creating. | 1 hr |
| User Behavior Research | Understand how users overcome pains and their behaviors when faced with this challenge. EX. How do users deal with narrowing down from multiple options | 1 hr |
| Concepting | As you go about your day, take the inspiration and jot down notes to remember your ideas, Then formulate a general concept you want to start with | 10 min + “shower ideas” |
| Doodling | As you are thinking and processing, make small doodles about fun ideas you see or ways you may want to solve it. | As long as you want.. |
| Crazy 8’s | Take your concept and think about it in a rapid exercise called Crazy-8’s. This forces you to think beyond your current version and possibly think of a new ground-breaking piece to the puzzle | 10 min |
| 3-Part Sketch | Now that you have a more refined concept, break it into 3 parts and formulate the actions being made to reach your end goal. | 30 - 40 min |
| Storyboards | Expand the 3-part sketch into a storyboard with as many steps as needed, but try your best to keep it simple. No one likes a complicated process | 2 hrs |
| Product Strategy | 10 - 20:30 hrs | |
| Future State Workflow | Now we need to take the storyboard and create a future state workflow with all the stages and steps needed to meet the users “Job to be done” | ~ 1:30 hrs |
| Future State Functions | List out all the functions that would be needed to make the workflow successful | ~ 1:30 hrs |
| Future State MVP Features | Now we need to understand the absolute minimum viable product features that the tool will needed to function and complete the steps task | ~ 1:30 hrs |
| Tool Exploration | Conduct a search for what tools currently exist and can complete the small steps you have listed out and match to your functions and features | 2 hrs |
| Mock-up and Test -Desirability (Recommended but optional) | This is a combination of a Paper Prototype and a simple User Test. Once we have a good foundation we need to see if our product holds water without investing too much time | 6 - 8 hrs |
| Tech Strategy - Feasibility (Recommended but optional) | Ask your tech “advisor(s)” or internal team to provide an assessment on how these tools might integrate into your current tech stack and their abilities to build your solution. | 4 hrs |
| Product Roadmap | Finally, map out a course for the design and implementation of your new tool. | 4 hrs |
| TOTAL | 20 - 34 hrs (3-5 days) |