23/01/2024
How to simplify complex solutions using 'product architecture sketches'✏️
A breakdown of the process we use at Canoe to rapidly demystify and understand complex products and services in only minutes.
Whether you're designing the next greatest video streaming platform, or you have found yourself working on a 10 year old monolithic product held together by duct tape without a page of documentation in sight. If you feel that your product is highly complex, or your team is struggling to land on a shared understanding of what it actually is, this article is for you.
We call this technique the 'Product Architecture Sketch'.
The 'Product Architecture Sketch' is a collaborative process we use at Canoe to simplify a complex product while building a shared understanding across the team, without needing to go into technical details.
We use this process to build an understanding of the ‘what’ behind a product, rather than the ‘how’. The 'how' comes later.
When we lead these 'Product Architecture Sketch' sessions, we ask teams broad questions like “What do users do?”, “What key functions are there?” and “What problems does it solve?”
We try and avoid technology focused questions such as “How do we store user accounts?”, “How do we serve 4k media files?” “How will we track X,Y,Z?” Those details are concerned with the how—they take us away from the product’s high-level purpose.
Setting your team up to conduct its own 'Product Architecture Sketch' is simple:
1.) Gets some markers (we use sharpies) and sheets of A4 paper.
2.) Get your team together
3.) Ask everyone to sketch a visual representation of their understanding of the product's major features. (e.g. uploading new courses, browsing a content library, etc)
4.) Set a timer for 5 minutes.
5.) Give everyone 2 minutes to share their drawing and answer clarifying questions
6.) Repeat steps 4-5 until participants have arrived at broad consensus
That’s it. That’s all there is to it.
We regularly use this process as a starting point for far-reaching conversations within the team, knowing that everyone is starting from the same page. It is especially useful for creating a visual representation of a product that everyone can understand and contribute to, and not just the more technically inclined.
One additional tip: the key to this process working well is to keep it simple and to bring in diverse views and ways of thinking from across your team.
👋 How have you built shared understandings of complex products in your organisation or team? Do you use a similar method? We would love to hear what has worked (or not worked) for you.
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