The "Scalability" of things

The word scalable means everything that can be inserted in steps and so working in a scalable way means that your project will not be developed all at once.

The experience will be planned and divided into stages, where each of them must clearly have a goal to be achieved. The first step should essentially support the "Heart" of the product: what should people do to minimize their product? What need do they propose to attend? Already the others will vary according to the nature of the project, the need of the people and the strategy of the business.

We can have a series of micro-steps with small evolutions in short space of time, or more robust steps that happen in larger intervals of time.

Startups live this much in their daily life with their "MVPs", but many of them do not have the opportunity to, after launching, continue to develop the product from the experience and analysis of information collected with their audience.

Scalable projects are based not only on a faster viability of the product but also on the planning and the need to have a short, medium and long term vision.

In this type of project, the collection of information still in the strategic phase is essential so that the steps are well planned and organized. It is necessary to know what the business objective is, what problem we want to solve, with which people we want to talk and how the ecosystem in which we intend to insert ourselves: Research, hypotheses and validations.

Strengths

Having a holistic view of the project allows the team to build an experience that actually analyzes how people use a particular product and the points of attention found along the way, and with that, make decisions that can affect the next steps, anticipating possible problems And identifying opportunities to evolve and continue to deliver an innovative and competitive experience. Steps need to be flexible, assuming that the results of the previous steps can result in changes in direction.

Another positive point is that it avoids not only the frustration of expectations built on hypotheses that have not been validated but also reduces the amount of rework and impact on other teams by channeling energy into ideas that are realized and evolve consistently.

I always try to do some things to ensure that the steps are consistent and flexible so that they continue to make sense for experience:

• Establish steps with concrete goals that are aligned with the needs of the people and objectives of the organization;
• Create schedules to have a way to keep up with the steps;
• Organize qualitative and quantitative monitoring routines;
• Perform A / B tests;
• Make Scenery tests;
• Develop flows;
• Always analyze and draw conclusions. How do the results of these studies impact the current stage and the following?

Conclusion

Thinking in a scalable way is nothing new, or something just used by Startups:

Business is thought like this

Products are also thought like this:

And even space travel is thought like this:

I like to think that scalable projects unite Art and science, because it combines the ideas plan with research, analysis and planning.

It is necessary to understand the people, the market in which your project is inserted and other cultural nuances. You need to know how to work with simplicity and planning, understanding how far your project can and wants to get.

Ironically simplicity can be hard to come by, and so I like the AOF method presented by author Joshua Porter in his book, "Design for Social Web." It helps us precisely to understand and reflect on what minimally people need to have, so that the project can be used and from there evolve and insert new features, functionalities, interactions.

Most importantly, for a scalable project to be developed consistently, flexibly, and meet business and people expectations, the teams involved are aligned and planning is shared, understood, and respected by all. If there is no such synergy between teams, at each new stage the project will lose its distance from its purpose, bringing the risk of suffering great impacts and inconsistency in the experience.