GFGP Global Grant Community – Project Process

Discovery – Data gathering

Initial data for this project was gathered during workshop exercises at the African Academy of Sciences annual conference in Nairobi. This was supported by surveys, and stakeholder and user interviews.

Discovery – initial analysis

The data gathered was grouped by user type, and clustered into into epics and user stories, using affinity diagrams.

These were initially assembled on the wall, then converted into a series of spreadsheets for better transparency.

User requirement production

Where applicable, new requirements were produced on the basis of the user data and prioritised. Shareable spreadsheets were used so that each user requirement could be traced to it’s origin.

These and initial user requirements were treated as hypotheses which were systematically validated by the user data or categorised as ‘reasonable assumptions’ due to logical or pragmatic necessity or occasionally ‘overwhelming weight of common sense’.

Learnings from the discovery process

• Many users wanted to have online peer support including an asset sharing community.
• Most users had good Internet access apart from a small number of aid workers who could be working in remote regions. Our hypothesis was that this group could be supported with a supplementary paper-based process.

From discovery to design

I used the requirements and Epics as the basis for a series of low-fi flow maps.

These were then developed into a workflow diagram for each user type. These included user requirement reference numbers so that we could demonstrate how they had been produced and validated.

Result

This work was assembled into a discovery phase report for the client. Initial feedback was very positive and the client wished for us to continue into the design phase.

Unfortunately Incuna could not survive the loss of it’s largest client (not the AAS) and the project was not completed.