When beginning a SSNiFs analysis, you want to capture your thoughts as quickly as possible. Starting with a pre-formatted template expedites matters. Here are the templates I use, free FREE for you to download and share:
Excel SSNiF template
Excel is the most polished and efficient tool for brainstorming SSNiFs. It’s fast and scales to a large number of SSNiFs. Excel supports boldfacing of words within cells, one of my tips. Using my favorite launcher, I can have a fresh, blank matrix ready to go in seconds.
Nothing is perfect, and a disadvantage of Excel is that it does not allow multiple paragraphs or bullet points per cell (another tip). Excel does not make it easy to collaborate; you must send copies to multiple people and then merge the results. I suggest starting with Excel if you don’t need to immediately collaborate with others electronically.
Excel has an AutoFilter feature that helps to organize and analyze. AutoFilter makes menus out of each column header, from which you can sort or filter the rows of the table. Good columns to sort and filter are: Area of the Product, Big vs. Little SSNiF, and, if you have it, Priority. To activate AutoFilter, select the title row and choose Data -> Filter -> AutoFilter.
Download Excel templates:
- Blank Excel SSNiF template (zip)
- Excel SSNiF template with sample data (zip)- (This document includes a few sample SSNiFs behind the design of a commuter coffee mug.)
Google Spreadsheets
The free FREE Google Spreadsheets, part of Google Docs is fantastic for online collaboration. Multiple people can edit a shared copy on their schedule, and even simultaneously with others. You can link to the SSNiF analysis from anywhere, which facilitates access and usage. Google Spreadsheets scales up very well.
The downsides are: you cannot yet boldface individual words within a cell, you cannot have paragraphs per cell, weak conditional formatting, you cannot merge cells vertically (right?), the user experience is clunkier than a modern desktop-based app.
Google Spreadsheets has a very good Excel import tool, so you can start your SSNiFs off in Excel and migrate them over when it’s time to collaborate.
You can access my Google Spreadsheets SSNiF template and make a copy from there (while signed in, choose File -> Copy Spreadsheet…)
Apple Numbers
I like where Apple is going with their Pages and Numbers. They have a number of innovations, and they certainly look sharper. But they are not quite mature yet for prime time use.
Nevertheless, here is the template I have for their spreadsheet, Numbers:
Word Processors
Word processor tables give full control over formatting your SSNiF tables. They are useful when you will be communicating a small set of finely tuned SSNiFs to someone (for example, when using Big SSNiFs as the basis of the product vision). You can generally merge cells and make them look exactly how you want.
Downsides: they don’t scale up as well as spreadsheet table, they get clumsy when there are additional columns, it’s hard to rearrange rows,
Here’s the SSNiF table in Microsoft Word format:
HTML tables
Web/HTML editors – SSNiFs look good in HTML tables, which support wrapping, multiple paragraphs in a cell, merging and highlighting.
The problem is that formatting can be a bear and takes time and mind juice away from thinking about the SSNiFs themselves. I only use them once I have worked out the SSNiFs elsewhere, when I have to express them on a web page.
- HTML SSNiF analysis template – (bring your own CSS)
Google Sites
Google Sites is the wiki concept evolved. It lets you publish always-available, hyperlinked documentation that anyone can read and refine at any time. I’ve replace most of my paper-based design documentation with it.
Google Sites’ table editing functionality is crude, but sufficient for communicating small- to medium-sized SSNiF tables (from one to about 30 SSNiFs). It allows tables to be interspersed with regular text, as I’ve demonstrated in some previous articles. This makes Sites great for capturing requirements using SSNiFs. (More on SSNiFs and requirements in Part 2)
Here is a simple Google Sites page you can copy for your own use:
Good luck using these templates. If you make worthwhile refinements or versions in other formats, please send them to me for inclusion.
Email or link to this article at: http://stealthisidea.com/articles/ssnif-templates
<< Back to beginning SSNiFs Part 1: Introduction
Philip Haine is principal of Product Vision Associates, a product innovation consultancy that helps product leaders and their teams envision new, breakthrough products and reboot older ones. To follow him on Twitter click here.
