Inceptions as a process, not an event
The four key phases of the inception journey
Synchronous workshops are a major part of the inception process. We use them to gather information or make decisions. Workshops are meetings as well. And what do we say about meetings? They are the last resort. So everything we’ve already discussed meeting best practice holds good. Preparation and synthesis are just as important as workshop facilitation. Before we discuss workshop mechanics, let’s understand what the broad journey of the inception looks like.
Information gathering. By the time you start an inception, you should know what you’re trying to build. This information and its rationale emerge from a discovery process. Regardless of who conducts this discovery, you need to gather and study this context to align yourself with the business. I recommend doing this part asynchronously.
Preparation. Once you consume information from the discovery, your team will know what questions you need to answer before you write the first lines of code for this project. It’s time to line up those questions and start planning activities and meetings to gather information so you have answers. This is also when you collaborate with the client to agree on the agenda, who needs to be in each meeting, and how you expect to work together. While you should have a few meetings to get to know each other and kick-off a working relationship, a lot of this work can happen asynchronously.
Facilitation. Most of the folklore around inceptions focuses on this bit. And I admit this is an important part of the process; especially to surface disagreements and to reach consensus. While most of this process is synchronous, I’ll explain shortly why you need to blend asynchronous methods to make these workshops effective.
Showcase. Last but not the least, an inception culminates in a showcase of outputs to all stakeholders. Inception showcases can also represent a go/no-go decision for the project, depending on the costs and complexity you uncover. Assuming you get a sign-off, this represents the starting point for your project. Even with this meeting, it’s good practice to share outputs asynchronously for everyone to study. The showcase can then be all about acting on those outputs.
As you’ll notice, every activity in the inception journey has the potential to be at least partly asynchronous.