Complete it

Do an initial audit of the existing brand, products, and user knowledge. Take stock of what you’re inheriting. There is no excuse for not knowing your company and product.

Start it

Find out who you’ll interact with, their expectations, and their concerns. Find out who owns front-end engineering’s time, and make them your Bestie.

This work is ongoing, and will never truly end.

Complete it

Summarize what you’ve learned from your audit, propose some lightweight solutions, and use it all to draft a plan. Schedule a 30 minute meeting on the calendar for next week to present it.

Complete it

You scheduled the presentation meeting last week; now do it. Give folks something to react to, now observe their reactions. Listen carefully and ask questions; this discussion will be pure learning gold.

Start it

Break the Master Plan into four tracks, then collect benchmark data on each:

Complete it

Do some informal messaging on your earliest data results. Even if all the data isn’t back in yet, it’s okay to just note that. As soon as you have a reasonable amount of information, hit send.

Complete it

You don’t know your users well enough yet to intuit what will really thrill them, so focus on whittling down issues uncovered during the audit. Work with engineering to choose something that takes maximum 3 days to build.

Complete it

“Proto” means quick and coarse grained. Focus on the basics. Any information should be a natural outcrop of the thought you just put into choosing a project. It also serves as a gut check: how does the project you chose relate to your users?

Complete it

If you had any data collection that didn’t get resolved in Week Two, you’ll have to handle it as it comes in. Take a moment to review it, revise the executive summary, and update stakeholders as needed.

Similar to the quick win, you need to choose a project and explore the solution space. Take a little extra time in this initial decision phase because it’s a bigger project. Make a choice which allows you to run a UX study in earnest.

Mock it up, describe it, and document it, all in the most efficient way possible. Start shopping the idea around. Gather feedback and adjust along the way. Make sure you’ve got all the buy-in you need to move forward.

Plan your UX research projects and begin participant recruiting. Set up your basic research documentation templates along the way, and involve the team. Use what you learn to flesh out your proto-personas.

If you need help, hop over to the FDI community. I also offer free mentoring onADPList, book here.

If you need to advise or consulting, I’ve got some options to work with me.

I offer consulting and bulk orders on books for your portfolio companies. Reach out here.