Collaborative Alignment – the ‘Auftragsklärung’ framework "Product people - Product managers, product designers, UX designers, UX researchers, Business analysts, developers, makers & entrepreneurs May 05 2019 True Alignment, Collaboration, Framework, Shared Ownership, stakeholders, Mind the Product Mind the Product Ltd 291 Marc Kadish discusses collaborative alignment at ProductTank London Product Management 1.164

Collaborative Alignment – the ‘Auftragsklärung’ framework

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In this talk from Product Tank London, I make a case for the crucial role of alignment in product management. In particular, I present the new framework – ‘Auftragsklärung’ – which includes a nicely designed canvas as a tool to structure and guide this intangible process.

‘Autonomy through alignment’ is one of the catchy phases I used to describe that strong product teams expect a high degree of autonomy in how they build their products. But autonomy is not something you can simply claim — it’s something you can only earn through successful alignment with stakeholders, peers and within your team.

In the video, I take you through the before and after scenarios – so what was wrong before using this framework and what effect has it actually had? – and then through the structure of the framework in detail and explain when to use it and how to get started.

Auftragsklärung – a framework for collaborative alignment

The framework was developed by my colleagues & I at XING.com, and we’ve been experimenting with it for over a year now. We aim for clarity and alignment about these core aspects of an initiative:

  • Complication — What’s the problem or trigger for this initiative?
  • Intent — What do you really, really want to achieve?
  • Hypotheses — What must be true so that your output leads to the intended outcome?
  • Output — What will you deliver in front of internal or external customers?
  • Outcome — Which metric will you use to measure success?

Take-Aways

It‘s about:

  • Sharpening your thinking
  • The conversation(s) that will get everybody on the same page.
  • … not filling out a canvas!

Also check out this related post on Medium by Arne Kittler, a friend and colleague of mine.