As a remote-first global company, InVision recognizes that effective product collaboration in a distributed environment involves a lot of moving parts. We strive to make our own workflows more productive, inclusive, and impactful, so we created purpose-built templates to help all product teams work together better.
InVision uses these six Freehand product team templates to go from ideas to feature launch (and every step in between!), helping us build experiences we’re proud of and strengthen team bonds along the way.
Invite team ideas and inspiration with Brainstorm
Calling all rogue thoughts and #badversions! You never know when an idea will spark something great. Invite your team to add their ideas as a sticky note to the brainstorming template, then group like ideas to see what themes emerge. This can be a great signal that your collective knowledge of your customer and their needs are leading you in a certain direction!
Bonus: use the user research template to dig a little deeper or get a gut check to confirm any assumptions.
Take a walk in a user’s shoes with Customer Journey Map
You may know the gist of a user’s journey, but are you familiar with their end to end experience? Knowing the full flow is crucial to making sure your team is starting from a shared understanding and not missing anything.
Start with the customer journey map template, filling in all the paths for different permission levels and roles. We recommend looping in your data partners for a quantitative view of the full funnel, event success, repeat usage, etc to further get a sense of the user’s experience.
Overview the who/what/why with Project Kickoff
It’s a big moment—let’s officially get this project going! A project kickoff sets the tone, and helps your team get their bearings on the who/what/why so that everyone is on the same page. It’s also a good time to lay out a RACI or DACI to align on ownership, and to set a date for your next cross-functional touchpoint. Try the project kickoff template to prepare your presentation with stakeholders.
For remote and hybrid teams, project kickoffs can be successful in a live meeting using InVision’s Zoom, Webex, or MS Teams integrations, or as an async recording with the Loom or Youtube integrations. Then share the kickoff Freehand in your communication channels so collaborators can leave additional feedback or questions to consider while still in this early stage.
Check in, offer help, and make adjustments with Daily Standup
With your project now in motion, you need to keep the positive momentum going. Daily standups ensure your team is flagging any blockers or risks so you can swarm problems and adjust expectations if necessary. Standups are also a great opportunity to get facetime with each other to build team connection and trust, and show ongoing gratitude for everyone’s hard work!
Try the daily standup template as part of your team’s rituals and watch miscommunications fall away.
Set engineering to-do’s and timelines with Sprint Planning
Use the sprint planning template to get consensus on the engineering plan. Try to scope and plan realistically—keep in mind your anti-goals, capacity and other projects, upcoming holidays, and PTO, and leave a smidge of room for unknowns (those will always pop up!). Huddle with your product team to get a sense for the timeline and define the Jira or Azure DevOps tasks for this effort. Once you have sprint alignment, you’re ready to start building.
Recap success and note areas for improvement with Retrospective
You brainstormed, you researched, you planned, you checked in, and you built and shipped something—how did it go? A retrospective is a moment to reflect on where you rocked it, and where there’s room for improvement. Use the retrospective template to collect team feedback, then reference that Freehand when going into your next project. The strongest teams are always up for process iterations!
As a product leader, a retro is also the perfect time to share analytics on how the feature is doing. Are you hitting expected targets? Any qualitative user feedback to share? Are there any fast-follow updates needed to address user concerns or help achieve your goals?
Finally, you should celebrate together! Building a product is challenging, and we hope your team IRL or virtually high-fives each other for a job well done.
