Agile inception deck
The agile inception deck is a structured workshop for the agile inception of a project. It was developed by Jonathan Rasmusson and introduced in his book The Agile Samurai (2010). Its aim is to align the team and stakeholders around ten fundamental questions before writing a single line of code.
Unlike traditional project-initiation documents, the inception deck isn't a deliverable you produce and file away: it's a structured conversation whose value lies in the discussions it generates, not in the final answers.
When to use it
At the start of a new project, before the first sprint. When a new team joins a project already underway and expectations need to be aligned. In projects with many stakeholders who hold different views on the scope or the goals.
The ten activities
1. Why are we here?
The project's purpose is established. Not what will be built, but why: what problem it solves and for whom.
2. Elevator pitch
The team practices explaining the project in the time it takes an elevator to go up one floor. It forces clarity and the prioritization of the key messages. See Elevator pitch.
3. Product box
The team designs the product's imaginary box: what would go on the cover, what selling points it would include. It helps make the product vision tangible. See Product box.
4. The NOT list
The team explicitly defines what the project will not include. Setting boundaries prevents scope creep and aligns expectations. See NOT list.
5. Meet your neighbors
Team members introduce themselves and share their backgrounds, skills, and expectations. External dependencies are also mapped: other teams, systems, or people that will affect the project.
6. Show the solution
Possible solutions are explored at a high level. It's not a detailed technical design, but a first conversation about the approach.
7. What keeps us up at night?
The team identifies the main risks and concerns. Naming risks out loud is the first step toward managing them.
8. Size it up
The size of the project is estimated and the metrics that will be used to measure success are established.
9. Be clear on what's going to give
Concrete deliverables are agreed: what will be produced, in what format, and to what level of quality.
10. Show what it's going to take
Budget and resource aspects are discussed. It includes an initial cost estimate and the financial constraints.
The inception deck in AI projects
Projects with a generative AI component have particularities that the standard inception deck doesn't explicitly cover. Some adaptations teams are adopting:
- What keeps us up at night? in AI projects usually includes: model hallucinations, biases in the training data, inference cost at scale, and dependence on external providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google).
- The NOT list should explicitly include which data will not be used to train or fine-tune the model, especially customer data or sensitive information.
- Size it up requires defining quality metrics for the AI output (accuracy, coherence, rejection rate) in addition to the usual business metrics.
Common mistake
Turning the inception deck into a document instead of a conversation. The value of the workshop is in the team and stakeholders debating and reaching agreements, not in the resulting artifact. Teams that fill out the inception deck in writing without running the actual workshop miss 90% of the benefit.
References
- Rasmusson, Jonathan. (2010). The Agile Samurai: How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software. Pragmatic Bookshelf.
See also
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