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Virpi

Thank you all for the good inital work with the questions!

A few additional questions worth asking from my perspective would also be:
-- To what extent can a special problem area of user experience/usability act as a key starting point of a new product development project at Nokia (or in your work)?
-- To what extent do you identify key problem/development areas of user experience/usability (a) by surveying users/consumers in general vs. (b) studying the strengths of competitors' products vis-a-vis your own ones specifically.
-- How do you manage consumers' expectations of the user experience of your products? (E.g. X is a feature where the consumer can/should expect a wow experience vs. Y is a basic hygiene feature that just needs to be in order even if we don't claim to provide any wow experience concerning Y)
-- Does consumer feedback about a product soon after market launch get integrated into development of improved version of the product (in portfolio/versioning management)?

Thanks Mikael!

I think the questions are in a good shape now for the first interview; you can then give more explanations if the interviewee does not know how to answer, and adjust the questions on the way.

Have you already thought about the analysis phase? Something more concrete than the talk might help the analysis: drawings, tables, even questionnaires? I'm just worried that if you run up to 10 interviews, you will have the knowledge in your head, but how you will be able to disseminate the results to the rest of the team?

  Virpi

We have taken into account the feedback and have revised the questions. The questions in parentheses are meant to further define the area of interest. We separated some more general user-centered questions from UX-related ones and tried to give a clearer focus on some previously commented issues.

Responsibilities (used for orientation and warm-up in order to get a description of the development context)

    - Define your unit's position inside Nokia. (Special area of responsibility?)
    - Define your position inside your unit. (What is your special area or responsibility?)
    - What are the main phases in product development?
    - What kind of projects do you participate in?
    - Describe the type of development processes your projects are involved in?
    - What process models are applied on those projects?
    - At what stage(s) of the development process are you involved?
    - What are the other stakeholders that have a direct impact on your work (affiliated departments, persons, departments to report to...etc.)
    - What kind of development-related activities do you participate in (as a person, as unit)?

Extras:
    - Do you apply agile development process? (only for developers)



Decision-making (Probing out possible limitations for the integration of UX processes)

    - What development-related decisions you (your department/unit) can do by yourself and what things are given? (what are the limits of your decision-making?)
    - What's the process for decision-making?
    - On what kind of aspects do you focus in decision-making?
    - What impact do your decisions have on products and other projects (software development vs. product development vs. service development)
  

Evaluations

    - What kind of evaluation methods do you perform on the products* the unit produces?

*products meaning here the kind of results the unit produces, which can be services, software, products, prototypes, etc.

    - What is the key information you are interested in (in relation to the previous question)?
    - Are there any common goals set for all departments or units working in a related area to your unit?
    - How do you monitor your achievements? (not meaning personal achievements)
    - How often it is done?
    - Are evaluations done inside the workgroup/unit or are personnel from some other unit needed?
        If inside the unit
        - Do you have a set procedure you follow for evaluating?
        - What are the specific methods you employ?
    - How do you monitor the effects of your work on the final product?

How designers/developers/marketers (in the business units) understand UX as a concept?

    - Do you feel that there is a Nokia product that is regarded especially good or bad in the eyes of the user? Why?
    - What kind of a role do the users play on your line of work?
    - What information about the user do you consider relevant for your work?
    - How are user-related issues discussed in your unit?
    - Are you familiar with the term User Experience?  

Set for those familiar with the concept of UX

    - What is your understanding of UX?
    - How did you learn about UX?
    - How long have you been aware of the term UX?    
    - Do you consider UX as an add-on to usability?
    - Is UX important for your work?
       - if yes: Do you already employ UX assessment?
       - if no: why isn't it?  
    - Which aspects of UX do you consider relevant for your work?
    - Are you aware of Nokia's UX elements (Usability, Utility, Enjoyment, Social Value)?
    - What kind of needs within the UX field do you have? If any?
    - What are the situations UX knowledge could/should be used?
  
Goal definition

    - Who is responsible for goal setting for the projects?
    - On what kind of data are the goals built on?
    - How is UX considered in the goal settings of projects? If yes, are there any objectives for UX? Which things are/should be measured?

Extra
 
    - is there a person you would recommend to us, whom we should interview? (e.g. in a situation where evaluations are not done inside the unit)
    - Is there a suitable project we could participate in?

Thanks for the reply, Lutz! It all makes sense.

For public information on Nokia's structure, you can check http://www.nokia.com/about-nokia/company/structure.

Virpi

Thank you Virpi for the great comments and additions! I guess this is a good start for making use of this platform as a forum for discussions.

In the following I want to present my views on the matter and respond to some questions that came up:
 
Regarding the set of questions, they were generated in a rather brainstorming manner and do not claim to be either complete or thoroughly elaborated so that's why it is brilliant to have already some feedback. Some of the questions which are marked as <too wide> need certainly more focus and have to be regarded as a kind of lead question or topic that requires more focused follow-up questions. Therefore it is great to gather further comments and proposals for refining the questions the following days.

Concerning the decision making (which probably applies only to certain people we are going to interview) I hope that these questions can help us to better understand what kind of information is needed and relevant, not only from a UX perspective, in order to understand what role, weighting UX related issues might have  and how they could contribute to these decision making processes (also in respect to what kind of data/results we have to produce to meet those peoples needs).
The goal defintion part from my point of view is relevant from the integration perspective. If we want to integrate UX-Tools in a product development process I feel we also have to understand how and by whom (managment, marketing, R&D, design?) project specific goals are defined in order to integrate and derive UX specific targets to and from those descriptions.
The achievement part mainly refers to monitoring the effect of relevant decisions within the product development (which might become important from a UX perspective).

I fully agree that we have to focus and find out more about the product development processes itself in Nokia. Especially as an outsider it is hard to imagine what units are typically involved, how they collaborate and what kind of projects are treated in what way.
Some information however could prove to be useful already prior to the interviews (if available) in order to address the right persons, e.g if there is something like an organisational map to gain an overview about the individual stages a project has to pass in a product development lifecycle in Nokia?

Nice set of questions!
I had to check the goal for the interviews from the project plan, and found this: "Analysis of existing Nokia development processes and understanding the product development domain in which UX tools processes can be utilized". So should we focus a bit more on the development processes, at least to find out the type of the process (e.g. agile)?  I dont know why we have to dig so deeply into decision making, achievements evaluation and goal setting. This does not mean I'm against them, I just need an explanation to understand.

Below my comments/additions bolded.

Responsibilities

    * Define your unit's position inside Nokia. (special area of responsibility?)
    * Define your position inside your unit. (What is your special area or responsibility?) 
    * What are the biggest challenges your job entails?  <Too wide? Focus.>
    * At what stage(s) of the development process are you involved?
    * Do you apply agile development process? <only for developers>
    * What are the other stakeholders that have an impact on your work (affiliated departments, persons, departments to report to...etc.) <Too wide? Focus.>
    * What kind of activities do you participate in (as a person, as unit)? <Too wide? Focus.>

Decision-making  <I don't quite see yet how this helps UXTools work, but I remember Turkka proposed to focus on this. Clarify?>

    * What product-related decisions you (your department/unit) can do by yourself and what things are given? (what are the limits of your decision-making?)
    * What's the process for decision-making?
    * On what kind of aspects do you focus in decision-making?
    * What impact do your decisions have on products and other projects (software development vs. product development vs. service development)
 
Evaluations

    * What kind of evaluations do you perform as a unit? <Too wide? Focus.>
    * What is the key information you are interested in (in which not at all (limitations))?  <Too wide? Focus.>
    * Are there any common goals set for all departments or units working in a related area to your unit?
    * What about performance reviews? (How do you measure your achievements?) <I think the latter question is better>
    * How often are they done?
    * Do you have a set procedure you follow for evaluating?
    * So what are the specific methods you employ? <For what? Focus.>

How designers/developers/marketers (in the business units) understand UX as a concept?

    * What is your understanding of UX? <Too wide? Focus.>
    * How did you learn about UX?
    * How long have you been aware of the term UX?   
    * How do you feel about UX personally? (Do you consider UX as an add-on to usability?)  <I think the latter question is better>
    * Is UX important for your work?
       - if yes: how has it changed your way of working? (Do you already employ UX assessment?)   <I think the latter question is important>
       - if no: why isn't it? 
    * What role does (could) it play for your overall work?
    * Which aspects of UX do you consider relevant for your work?
    * How are UX related issues discussed in your unit?  <Too wide? Focus.>
    * Are you aware of Nokia's UX elements (Usability, Utility, Enjoyment, Social Value)?
    * What kind of needs within the UX field do you have? If any?
    * What are the situations UX knowledge could/should be used?
    * Do you feel that there is a Nokia product that is especially good/bad in UX sense? Why? <Explain them why we ask this question>
 
Goal definition

    * Who is responsible for goal setting?  <What goals? Personal/project/product/UX work? Focus.>
    * On what kind of data are the goals built on?
    * Does UX play a role in the goal settings of projects? If yes, are there any objectives for UX? Which things are/should be measured?

Extra
 
    * is there a person you would recommend to us, whom we should interview? 
    * Is there a suitable project we could participate in?
<I think the following ones are important, wonder why they are here?>
    * How is a product developed in Nokia? <Too wide? Focus.>
    * What are the main phases in product development? 
    * How do you monitor the effects of your work on the final product?

We have come up with a list of questions we feel important to ask in the forthcoming interviews. In this version the interview is divided into 4 (5) different topics. The topics are so far responsibilities, decision-making, evaluations and UX as a concept. The current questions are:

Responsibilities

    * Define your position inside Nokia. (Do you have any special area of responsibility?)  
    * What are the biggest challenges your job entails?
    * At what stage(s) of the development process are you involved?
    * What are the other stakeholders that have an impact on your work (affiliated departments, persons, departments to report to...etc.)
    * What kind of activities do you participate in (as a person, as unit)?

Decision-making

    * What decisions you (your department/unit) can do by yourself and what things are given? (what are the limits of your decision-making?)
    * What's the process for decision-making?
    * On what kind of aspects do you focus?
    * What impact do your decisions have on products and other projects (software development vs. product development vs. service development)
  
Evaluations

    * What kind of evaluations do you perform as a unit?
    * What is the key information you are interested in (in which not at all (limitations))?
    * Are there any common goals set for all departments or units working in a related area to your unit?
    * What about performance reviews? (How do you measure your achievements?)
    * How often are they done?
    * Do you have a set procedure you follow for evaluating?
    * So what are the specific methods you employ?

How designers/developers/marketers (in the business units) understand UX as a concept?

    * What is your understanding of UX?
    * How did you learn about UX?
    * How long have you been aware of the term UX?    
    * How do you feel about UX personally? (Do you consider UX as an add-on to usability?)
    * Is UX important for your work?
       - if yes: how has it changed your way of working? (Do you already employ UX assessment?)
       - if no: why isn't it?  
    * What role does (could) it play for your overall work?
    * Which aspects of UX do you consider relevant for your work?
    * How are UX related issues discussed in your unit?
    * Are you aware of Nokia's UX elements (Usability, Utility, Enjoyment, Social Value)?
    * What kind of needs within the UX field do you have? If any?
    * What are the situations UX knowledge could/should be used?
    * Do you feel that there is a Nokia product that is especially good/bad in UX sense? Why?
  
Goal defintion

    * Who is responsible for goal setting?
    * On what kind of data are the goals built on?
    * Does UX play a role in the goal settings of projects? If yes, are there any objectives for UX? Which things are/should be measured?

Extra
 
    * is there a person you would recommend to us, whom we should interview?  
    * Is there a suitable project we could participate in?
    * How is a product developed in Nokia?
    * What are the individual development stages?
    * How do you monitor the effects of your work on the final product?

Please state your views on these questions and propose additions if you feel we have missed something.

Lutz & Mikael

This is our proposal for the agenda for Tuesday.

Place: NRC Ruoholahti Itämerenkatu 11-13

9:00-9:30
Coffee
NDAs

9:30-11:30
Personal views on UX: A short oral or audiovisual presentation about the understanding of UX and about points of special interest concerning UX. (15 mins each)

11:30-12:30
Lunch

12:30
Short presentation and discussion on the planned interviews

13:00-15:30
Workshopping: different perspectives, overall goals of the framework
Experi(m)ent(i)al "Provocative Affinity diagram"

Taik Research lab 8th floor

Start: 9:00
End: 12:00