Templates index

• The Initiative Document Fill-in template

  1. Customer

  Who is the customer? one sentence that helps you find them

  Problem / opportunity (TODAY / HAVE TO / WHEN): today they…, they have to…, which bites when…

  How do we know? validation method + metrics

  How is it solved today? the current workaround

  2. Solution

  In plain words (1–3 paragraphs): …

  Storyboard (8–12 panels): panel 1…, panel 2…, …

  3. Planning & Team

  Timeline: key achievement per week (<12 wks) or per month (3+ months)

  Time-critical events: conferences, freezes, deadlines

  Relationship to other projects: dependencies and risks

  Team shape: roles and responsibilities

  4. Business Case

  Market (TAM / segment): …

  Budget: euros or person-months

  Back-of-napkin case: one or two paragraphs

  5. Measure Success

  Lead metrics: …

  Lag metrics: …

  Gold / Silver / Bronze: …

  FAQs (optional)

  Internal: question → answer or TBD

  External: question → answer or TBD

• The Approach (and Tracks) Keeping it current

  Outcome (from the Initiative Document): the last week's result = success

  Tracks (optional): Design / FE / BE / Research…

  Week-by-week (next 6–12 weeks, planned backwards):

  • Week N — "The one where…" — demo: …
  • Week N-1 — "The one where…" — demo: …
  • …

  Then (coarser): months → quarters → halves

  Uncertainties assigned to weeks: uncertainty → week it gets reduced

  Waiting for Answers: external wait → who owns it → what reduces it

  This week's Weekly Goals: what we commit to, at 75% capacity

• The Approach (and Tracks) Fill-in template — Basic Approach Plan

  Disclaimer: this plan will change; it is not a customer promise unless marked as one

  Helpful links: assets, business case, press release

  Uncertainties (checkbox questions):

  • [ ] Will…?

  Week Plan:

  • Week N (#1): "The one where…"
  • Week N+1 (#2): "The one where…"

  Impediments / Waiting for Answers: e.g. "Will Marketing help in weeks 20–24? (waiting for answer)"

  Lessons Learned: e.g. "Plan user interviews well on time"

• The Check-in (the artifact) Why write it down

  Questions / FYI: holidays, disruptions, news, awareness items

  Lessons Learned: what reality taught us; tag #10percent where it applies

  Things to Figure Out (one per person, one-day scope, Why/How/What/When):

  • [name] — …?

  Unknowns & Uncertainties (optional): biggest uncertainty right now → push to the Uncertainty List

  Waiting for Answer (optional): what, who, since when, what reduces the wait

• The Product Demo (the artifact) Common pitfalls

  Discipline: e.g. design / engineering / data

  Problem: what we were solving, and why it mattered

  Solution (live or concluded): what we're showing — screenshot, graph, or live demo — working in production or concluded

  Data: the signal that proves or disproves it

• The Uncertainty List Why teams resist it — and the fix

  Project size: small (1) / medium (3) / large (5) → number of uncertainties

  Uncertainty (as If/Then or Will/When): …?

  Size (1/3/5): …

  How we'll reduce it: the smallest experiment — becomes a TFO or demo objective

  Assigned to (week / owner): …

  Lesson Learned on resolution: … (feeds the Initiative Document + Approach)

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