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18.1 Plan A Feature

In this capstone, you'll gain experience in some core product management activities. These include documenting product requirements, creating specifications (specs), and writing epics and stories. You'll have a choice between two scenarios; both have a strong technical and data component, requiring you to apply the technical understanding you've developed over the last several modules to a product development challenge.

As in real life, this will not be a one step project. Instead, you will submit your documents for feedback and revise them multiple times. A particularly exciting element of this capstone is the developer review stage, where you'll be able to leverage a conversation with one of PMcademy's engineering member to simulate the experience of collaborating with developers.

As a quick overview, you can expect to follow four steps in creating this capstone project:

  • First, you'll create documentation to address the scenario of your choice, including stories and mockups. You're encouraged to review this with fellow students before moving on.
  • Next, you'll review the documents and stories with an engineer from PMcademy's engineering member, who will give you feedback and more technical items that you need to address.
  • Finally, you'll revise and submit a final version of your product requirement documents.

The scenarios​

Carefully read the two scenarios described below, and choose which one you would like to work on for this capstone.




Scenario 1: FitBit data visualization​

Your company was hired by FitBit to build the visualization of their body fat, weight, and goals screen in their mobile app. They've given you access to the body APIs for pulling this data directly from their servers. You don't need to worry about authenticating users, sign in, or anything else. Assume you already have the user ID for each user, their language, and preferred units (metric or imperial). You can pull any of the data from any of the APIs on the linked page.

Using the APIs and the data they provide, come up with a way to compellingly display data in a single page of a mobile app. Think about the following questions when you conceive your page:

  • What can a user see at a glance?
  • Over what range of dates is it most appropriate to show this data? Can this range be changed?



Scenario 2: Airline weather forecast​

You work at United Airlines. Your company's leadership has decided that incorporating weather data into the trip planning process is the best way to differentiate United in the market. Specifically, your boss thinks users would value seeing average weather data somewhere in the booking process. For example, if a user searches for flights to Buffalo, NY in December your website or mobile app could somehow indicate that it's going to be cold or snowy.

Using this US Government database of average high and low temperatures and precipitation, figure out a way to display this information in the booking process. Consider the following questions when creating your visualization:

  • How would you map those database values to your destination cities (US only)?
  • Where and how should the weather data be displayed in the United booking experience? You can choose to focus on either the web or the mobile app; bonus points if you do both!

Assignment​

For either scenario, you have a team of two developers and one UX (user experience) designer. Your boss is expecting to see the first version of this product launched in two months. Create the documentation, mockups, and stories for the feature that satisfies the scenario.

Your assignment should include all of the following elements:

  • A demo press release for the launch of the feature.
  • An interactive prototype of the feature created from at least three connected mockups.
  • Epics and stories that further develop those mockups, including acceptance criteria, goals and key performance indicators, error states and checks, and anything else your developers would need to complete the work.
  • A roadmap of the first two months of work. Remember, you have two developers and one UX designer working full time. Make reasonable assumptions about how long each task will take. To take the assignment even further (which is optional), you can reach out to a developer or UX designer at a networking event, online, and ask them to help you make more informed guesstimates.
  • A high-level plan for the improvements you intend to work on after the first version has launched.

Create a folder or a document with links to all of your capstone work, you will submit it later

As a product manager, having other people on your team review your docs and mockups is a common practice. Discuss this work with a peer or your mentor before moving on to the developer review stage. Ask for feedback focused on improving your documents so that you can be well prepared to take advantage of your limited discussion time with a developer.