Answer ten important questions at the start of a new project to avoid common failures and align stakeholders. The inception deck most often takes the form of a slide deck or lightweight text document and is usually created early in a project’s life, during the inception phase. The version of the activity outlined here was described by Jonathan Rasmusson in The Agile Samurai: How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software [Ras10].

Benefits

• Put important information in the open.

• Share easily with all stakeholders.

• Ensure all stakeholders have a common understanding of important system concerns.

• Discuss important information that should be covered at the start of a new project.

Description

Filling in the inception deck can take as little as 20 minutes when you have the required information handy. Finding the information needed for the deck could take days or weeks. The inception deck is highly customizable. Modify the questions presented here so that they work for your particular situation.

To create an inception deck, answer these questions and record the answers in a slide deck, markdown file, or another format that can be easily shared with stakeholders.

1. Why are we here?

Simply and clearly describe the problem you are going to solve.

2. What’s the vision?

Concisely describe how the proposed software system will solve the problem shared by answering the first question. Rasmusson recommends creating an elevator pitch for this slide. There are many resources on this topic available on the web.

3. What’s the value?

List the business goals for the project. See ​Discover the Business Goals​ for ideas and hints.

4. What’s in scope?

List the highest-priority functional requirements that are known to currently be in scope. Usually these will be the must haves. Also list features that are definitely out of scope as well as functionality with potential architectural significance whose scope is still to be determined.

5. Who are the key stakeholders?

List the key stakeholders and their primary concerns.

6. What does the basic solution look like?

Share a sketch of the notional architecture. This can be an informal diagram such as ​Let Ideas Breathe with a Cartoon​.

7. What are the key risks? (Why might this project fail?)

List the current top risks in the project. Review what makes a good risk statement in ​Identify Conditions and Consequences​.

8. How much work? What are the costs?

Using what you know about the scope and notional architecture, estimate the approximate effort and costs to complete the known work. List any assumptions you make about the team size and skill sets.

9. What are the expectations for trade-offs?

Have a frank discussion about key trade-offs before difficult decisions need to be made. Talk about the Big Four: scope, cost, schedule, and quality. Also discuss any interesting or high-priority quality attributes, especially if they may be in tension. Use Activity 1, ​Choose One Thing​

10. When will it be ready?

Provide stakeholders with an idea for how long it takes to deliver the software. This estimate is your opportunity to start a conversation about key milestones. Create a draft time line or project schedule for the known work. The schedule is not expected to be perfect and should change as the project evolves.

Once the inception deck is completed, review it with stakeholders and make adjustments based on feedback.

Guidelines and Hints

• Use the ten questions as a checklist for kicking off a software project.

• Periodically review the inception deck as a reminder for what’s important in the project.

• Slides are not required! The important thing is to answer the questions. Markdown also works well for the inception deck.

• The effort that goes into creating the Inception Deck should be commiserate with size and cost of the project. For example, don’t spend a week creating an inception deck for a two-week project. At the same time, a week might not be enough time to complete an inception deck for a huge, multiteam project.

Example

Jonathan Rasmusson has shared an excellent example on his website.^[46]