The third step of the middle platform landing: planning and design of the middle platform

In the first two lectures, we completed the first round of enterprise-level divergence and convergence in the D4 model through Discovery combined with Define. Standing at the height of the enterprise, based on the enterprise vision and internal and external environment, we determined the final platform-based enterprise architecture through top-down strategic decomposition and bottom-up current situation investigation, and then applied enterprise architecture analysis methods to answer questions such as whether to build a middle platform, what types of mid-platform buildings are needed, who should build first and who should build later.

Starting from this lecture, we will enter the second round of divergence and convergence of the D4 model. From the perspective of a mid-platform product, let’s take a look at how to design and implement it, which is the two stages of Design and Delivery in D4. Similarly, this lecture starts with Design. We will use the design and implementation of a Central Product Platform as a sample to explain the ideas and key points of this stage.

Okay, at this point, we still need to borrow the example of Geek Real Estate.

We assume that after the first round of enterprise-level research and architecture design, Xiao Wang and his team found an urgent need to build Geek Real Estate’s own Central Product Platform to achieve the company’s strategic goal in 2022, which is to transform from heavy asset business to light asset service business, and better provide multi-scenario services for Geek Real Estate’s client base, that is, IT practitioners.

So the next question is, how should we build the Central Product Platform? And where should we start building the Central Product Platform?

In this class, let’s discuss the specific design and launch issues of the middle platform together. In the current example, it is the design process of Geek Real Estate’s Central Product Platform (hereinafter referred to as Geek Middle Platform).

During the design phase, the questions we need to answer are: what is the vision of the geek middle platform? What does it include? Where does it start to be implemented? After completing the design phase, we should have a clear idea of how to start mid-platform building, which can allow the team to start developing the middle platform MVP. If you are not sure what MVP is, don’t worry, it will be introduced later.

# Determine the vision of the middle platform product

By now, you must know that the first step is to clarify the vision and goals of this Central Product Platform, because this is the foundation of our entire mid-platform building process and the original intention of mid-platform building.

Do you remember what we mentioned before? The construction of the middle platform is a road full of thorns and twists and turns. We will encounter various problems and choices during the process. A good vision for the middle platform can help us always maintain our original intention and not easily lose our direction.

So how can we develop a good vision for the middle platform? When I go to a company to do consulting related to the middle platform, the first question I ask the person in charge of mid-platform building is: You said you want to do the middle platform, what is the vision of mid-platform building?

Most of the answers I received were positive, after all, no one would admit that their project doesn’t even have a goal or vision. But once asked what the specific vision is, it usually starts with a long narrative, from the company’s history to the current situation, from industry discussions to recent speeches by the company’s management. In short, my summary is: if the leader says we want to do the middle platform, we will do it.

I think this is quite dangerous. After all, as we mentioned earlier, the vision of the middle platform, as the starting point of all problems, needs to be simple and clear enough to become a tool that guides the direction of our mid-platform building process like a Compass, and also to achieve the “look at the vision when in doubt” mentioned earlier.

Here is a simple and useful tool that we often use to help us diverge and converge our product vision. Of course, it is also applicable to the middle platform, which is the Elevator Pitch.

As the name suggests, the elevator speech assumes a scenario where we encounter the company’s management on the elevator and can explain to them clearly what we are doing, such as the middle platform, within a limited time. This requires us to be sufficiently restrained. Therefore, the form of the elevator speech mainly limits several key factors of the product, such as who the user is, what problems they solve, and what the differentiation characteristics are. Each element is very important. If you cannot answer or the team’s answer is different, it reflects to some extent that everyone has not yet reached a consensus on the vision of mid-platform building, which will lay the foundation for the emergence of various problems in the future.

Don’t underestimate such a small elevator speech. It feels like answering a few questions is enough. From my actual experience, every discussion on planning the mid-platform product vision will exceed the time limit. At first, I thought it might be such a simple thing that could be done in an hour. Later, because the discussion was too intense, the time expanded to half a day. Now, we usually reserve half a day or even a whole day to fully diverge and converge the mid-platform product vision.

But even though we have spent so much time, I still think it is very necessary. It is worth spending more time on discussing the vision, because it will affect the future direction of our mid-platform design and construction. Once formed, it will become the foundation of our mid-platform building. The importance of this step cannot be overemphasized.

Here is a question that needs to be mentioned. The value and difficulty of vision lies in full convergence But I have seen many companies’ visions, although they also use elevator speeches, but the result is full of walls. Although it looks shocking, the effect is actually greatly discounted. After all, we cannot repeat the content of a whole wall in one elevator time. As the saying goes, addition is easy, subtraction is difficult.

# Determine the scope of business consolidation

After the vision of the middle platform product is determined, the next step is to sort out the business architecture of fine grain, extract commonalities, and identify the specific needs of the middle platform product.

However, for the same enterprise-level reasons, the problem we often face is not knowing where to start. After all, the middle platform has enterprise-level attributes. Even if it is business sorting, it will involve the entire Line of Business of the enterprise, and it is an end-to-end and full-process sorting work. The workload is often daunting.

Do all Lines of Business need to be sorted out? Do all stages of end-to-end need to be sorted out? What level of granularity does business sorting need to reach? These are frequently faced issues.

Generally, the situation of different companies is different here. If the overall scale of the company is not particularly large, it is also possible to do end-to-end business sorting for the entire business. The advantage of this is that it is more comprehensive and less likely to be missed. It can have an overall picture of the business status of the enterprise, and the identification of common middle platform needs will also be more accurate.

However, many enterprises, especially those with the highest demands in the middle platform, are often large conglomerates with multiple Lines of Business. For enterprises of this scale, it is basically impossible to do end-to-end sorting of the entire business, otherwise just coordinating personnel will be a troublesome problem. At this time, we need to first determine a scope, and then carry out business sorting and development within this scope.

So how should this scope be defined? As the saying goes, when in doubt, look at the vision. This is where the mid-platform vision we discussed earlier comes in handy.

Taking Geek Real Estate as an example, the vision of mid-platform building is to quickly achieve lightweight transformation of the business through the ability to reuse mature business capabilities and reuse them in other new types of light asset Line of Business, such as long-term rental apartment business (specific elevator speeches will not be elaborated here).

Currently, Geek Real Estate focuses on serving the IT community, and its real estate and property businesses have matured with a very sound IT infrastructure. There is a strong demand for long-term rental apartments targeting this group, but as a new Line of Business, long-term rental apartments start from scratch in terms of investment expansion, design, inviting tenders procurement, engineering construction, decoration and renovation, customer management, and property operation.

Returning to the issue of business organization scope, with a clear vision, we can make our business organization more focused.

First of all, from the perspective of business lines, not all Lines of Business need to be sorted out. Let’s take Geek Real Estate as an example. Its subsidiaries have a wide range of interests, and Line of Business focuses on investment, culture, education, etc. Because these Lines of Business have long-term independent development and are not directly related to the vision and goals of Geek Real Estate’s mid-platform products mentioned earlier, they can be skipped directly.

Then comes the end-to-end business Value Chain. Through analysis, since the company’s strategy is to serve light assets, it is not applicable to the construction of projects in the real estate industry, that is, the part of building buildings and houses, and the new business based on the company’s light asset strategy investment, so there is no need for further sorting.

Based on the vision of the middle platform construction, we can converge into a focused area in the horizontal end-to-end Value Chain and vertical business lines.

Further business sorting and development in this focused area will be more efficient and focused.

# Finishing of fine grain business

After determining the scope of sorting, the next step is the specific business sorting work.

Generally, everyone’s approach is based on existing processes or systems to sort out the existing business processes, such as the four flows often mentioned in the field of e-commerce, which specifically refers to the sorting work of information flow, business flow, capital flow, and logistics. The tools used are mostly flowcharts , which are very mature tools.

However, this kind of sorting based on existing processes sometimes has some limitations. Simply put, it may deduce pseudo-middle platform requirements based on past business debts. What does this mean? It means that for some long-term and mature businesses, the existing business methods may not be the best way, but rather the product of long-term development and compromise with various peripheral and IT restrictions in the past.

For example, Line of Business, which usually takes a long time, will have a very complex approval and review process. However, the review and approval process is actually just a solution. The problem to be solved may be process fraud or other internal risks and problems. Complex approval processes are often the product of process control in the information age or even earlier paper age. Since information technology only digitizes offline processes, it has continued to this day. In order to highly replicate and restore the process of the paper age, various strange approval logics, such as countersigning, have emerged with Chinese characteristics.

However, if we return to the problem domain and rethink the problem itself, we will find that in today’s digital age, where Big data and AI are widely used, there may no longer be a need for process approval. Through new technologies, we can use real-time audit analysis or risk identification to discover some anomalies in business processes, and even completely automate and eliminate the involvement of intermediaries, fundamentally solving these problems and truly unleashing the power of digitalization.

This kind of thinking method of returning to the problem domain itself, returning to the origin of the problem, and redesigning the solution based on the user request under the current business and technical conditions can avoid the business debt trap mentioned above, and is also mostly used in innovative business. The design process, and this way of thinking also refers to and borrows a lot of design thinking methods.

Therefore, unlike the traditional business process sorting based on the status quo, we have adopted a large number of methods based on design thinking , combined with User Experience Map (User Journey Map) and Service Blueprint (Service Map) in the process of business sorting. Returning to the business itself, starting from the problem domain, user-centered, User Experience design and business service blueprint sorting are also very good in terms of effect.

Of course, it’s not about which method is better. Different tools and methods have different applicable scenarios and advantages and disadvantages. If they can be flexibly mastered, they can even be used in combination to fully leverage their respective advantages.

By sorting out the business architecture within the scope, combined with the analysis of cross-scenario general capabilities, we can have a certain in-depth understanding of the business overview of the focus area, and identify some business data, business functions, and business processes that can be reused in different Lines of Business. These general business data, business functions, and business processes are processed and analyzed to form the specific requirements of the middle platform. For these requirements, we describe them through User Story (User Story).

# Determine MVP

Through business sorting, we have identified and organized a large number of Central Product Platform requirements. It is worth noting that the so-called middle platform product requirements at this time are more derived from qualitative abstraction. Considering that the requirements of the middle platform are often not as clear as those of the front-end business system, strictly speaking, the requirements at this time still belong to a series of high-risk assumptions.

From the mid-platform building projects I have actually participated in, it is often the case that the mid-platform requirements initially envisioned deviate greatly from the original expectations after the actual development is completed. This means that the longer the mid-platform building cycle, the greater the risk and cost of the assumed requirements.

Therefore, in the process of building the middle platform, we introduced the MVP principle (Minimum Viable Product) in Lean Startup, and also implemented the Start Small in the overall principle I mentioned earlier.

In order to achieve MVP and ensure that the MVP produced is usable, we adopt an end-to-end vertical segmentation method for business requirements, combined with multi-dimensional scoring and sorting of requirement priorities, to ultimately determine the scope of MVP requirements. The final form of implementation may be the first iteration of the User Story list.

Now that we have a specific User Story list, can we start developing it? Don’t worry, there are two things we suggest considering before starting mid-platform building, which are operational plans and metrics.

# Operation prerequisites: Develop iteration plans and access plans

First, let’s take a look at the operation plan. For the middle platform, it may be the promotion of middle platform products, the front-end (user) access plan, and the operation support after access.

What I have seen in the past is that it is often too late to start considering these issues in the middle and later stages of mid-platform building. Moreover, in many cases, the front-end will not stop and wait for mid-platform building to be completed, and then start their own business evolution after integration, so it is often the front-end and middle-end parallel.

This process is very similar to branch development in our development, modifying the same piece of content, so it will be very painful when merging.

Therefore, it is crucial to consider the operation plan, especially the access plan, in advance, and try to use a reasonable access plan (I have seen many companies call this access plan the on-board plan, which is very vivid) to avoid some risks, which is also crucial for the construction of mid-platform products. The specific operation strategy will be introduced to you in the next article.

# Metric Prerequisites: Define Validation Metrics

Another thing that needs to be clear before the mid-platform product construction starts is the measurement index. I don’t know if you remember this, but we have already talked about the four questions that need to be clear before mid-platform building. The specific reason why it is necessary to design the measurement index before development has been explained before. Here, I will share some design ideas for the measurement index with you.

First, let’s take a look at the commonly used indicators. I have divided the most common product measurement indicators on the market into four categories: strategic, user, market expansion, and cost reduction and efficiency improvement. Based on each dimension, many commonly used measurement indicators can be found.

As for the middle platform, the difficulty lies in the fact that there is still a front-end layer between it and the market and users, so the measurement is not as clear as the front-end system that directly contacts users. However, we say that the middle platform is empowering the front-end business, and it cannot be separated from the business. Simply measuring some technical aspects, such as interface stability and interface quantity, does not conform to the positioning and value of the middle platform for business support empowerment.

Therefore, when considering the measurement indicators of the middle platform, we generally take strategic value and business value as the starting point, start to break down and deduce, and use multi-dimensional and multi-level indicator design to examine the effect of mid-platform building according to the different concerns of stakeholders. It should be emphasized here that although the dimensions and perspectives are different, we must ensure that the mid-platform building goal reflected by all indicators must be the same.

As for the specific implementation method, it is difficult to give a standard answer because each middle platform product is different. In the practical operation process, it is recommended that you think more from the perspective of others and ask more “how” questions. I believe you are familiar with the 5Why analysis method. Here we can slightly modify it and use 5How to drive the design of verification indicators.

For example, if I stand from the perspective of the company’s management:

• So how do I judge the results of mid-platform building? If the answer is to empower new businesses,
• So how do I verify the effectiveness of empowering new businesses? If the answer is to look at the launch speed of new businesses,
• So how do I verify the launch speed of the new business? If the answer is to look at the time from project approval to launch of the new business,
• Then how do I verify…

You see, people often say that measurement is difficult. In fact, everyone has a scale in their heart, but we just haven’t expressed it clearly. Through 5How, we can constantly ask questions and discover this scale in everyone’s heart to better guide the construction and promotion of our mid-platform products.

# Summarize thinking

This lesson takes the construction process of a Central Product Platform as an example. Taking the vision of the Central Product Platform as the starting point, it introduces the tools for elevator speeches. Then, based on the mid-platform building vision, it clarifies the scope and priority of business sorting.

After clarifying the entry point and scope of business sorting, we can carry out user-centered business process sorting and service design based on design thinking, combine domain-driven design for business model sorting, and finally identify the middle platform requirements of common business data, business processes, and business models through cross-Line of Business comprehensive analysis.

Afterwards, by introducing the MVP principle from Lean Startup, end-to-end vertical segmentation is adopted based on business priorities for mid-platform requirements, and the starting point of mid-platform building is finally determined, which is the specific construction content of the first phase.

Finally, with the analysis and design of the product operation mechanism and measurement indicators in the middle platform, we can officially initiate the project and enter the delivery stage for specific implementation.

In the next lecture, we will officially enter the final stage of D4, which is the delivery stage of Delivery. Let’s take a look at the ideas and methods we use in the delivery stage, as well as the issues we need to pay attention to.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a few thought-provoking questions:

• What is your business sorting process like? How are the middle platform requirements analyzed?
• Have you adopted the MVP principle? How do you avoid the hypothetical risk of mid-platform building?

Please write down your thoughts in the comment section and discuss with me. You are also welcome to share today’s content with your friends and learn together. See you in the next lecture!