What needs to be true

Useful for.

Exploring the objectives of the client and how the website helps them meet their objectives. Trying to work out the value we’re providing with each feature.

How to do it.

Get a whiteboard/ large wall. Write out 1-2 key objectives on postits/ the whiteboard. Put them at the far end. Then start working backwards from there, always asking what needs to be true to achieve that. For example, if a goal is “every US secondary school kid interacts with this site”, it needs to be true that “it’s possible to recommend it for teachers” and “every school has technology needed to show the site”. And for those two things to be achieved, there are a lot of other things that need to be true. And so on and so on… It’s best to think of ‘barriers’ (things that will stop us achieving our goal) and ‘facilitators’ (things that will help us/ need to be in place in order to achieve a goal)

The idea is to keep going down the “what needs to be true”, to make sure our goals are achievable and identify any of the questions we need to ask in the coming weeks.

A good example. EarthPulse. See notes here

Time needed. This will need at least an hour. 5 mins to set up the activity, then probably 20-30 minutes on each big objective (focus on 2, maybe 3 at most).