STEP 1: IDENTIFY USE CASES AND GROUP BY ORGANIZATIONAL PERSONA (ie. Work v. Home) AND BY INDIVIDUAL PERSONA ROLES WITHIN THOSE ORGANIZATIONS

AT WORK

• Coordinator sets up a medium-sized meeting with 5-10 people across many different departments.
• Coordinator sets up a medium-sized meeting with 5-10 people, some of which are outside of their organization.
• Individual Contributor sets up a small meeting with one or two fellow Individual Contributors.
• Coordinator or Individual Contributor asks for a time with a High-level Manager through their Administrative Assistant.

• Administrative Assistant to High-level Manager sets up a medium-sized meeting with 5-10 people across many different dpartments.
• Administrative Assistant to High-level Manager sets up a medium-sized meeting with another High-level Manager either within or without their organization and several people within the organization.
• Administrative Assistant to High-level Manager sets up an one-on-one with either a Coordinator or Individual contributor.
• Coordinator or Administrative sets up a large, department-wide event (ie. Lunch-time lecture).
• Administrative Assistant wants to remind everyone that next week is an organizational holiday.

• Someone sends out an FYI about an upcoming event that is unrelated to work (ie. I'm going to be on Who wants to be a Millionaire)
• Someone wants to announce to the people they work with that they're going to be out all next week at a conference.
• Someone wants to remind the team that its a co-worker's birthday next week.

AT HOME

• Someone sends out a dinner party invitation to 6 people.
• Someone sends out a party invitation to 50 people.
• Someone sends out a party invitation to 1000 people.
• Someone wants to remind their spouse that they have to Do their taxes this weekend!
• Someone wants to remind their spouse that it's their mother's birthday next week.
• Someone wants to remind their spouse that they have to pick me up from my next dentist appointment.
• Someone wants to remind their spouse that they need to pick the kids from Soccer all of the next week.
• Someone sends their family an event to remind them that they all have to go to get their Visas for their trip to Vietnam next Thursday morning.
• Someone sends their family all of the Parent's weekends for their kid's first semester at college.

STEP 2: GROUP USE CASES BY WORKFLOW ISSUES

In which of these cases does there need to be formal: Accept, Tentative and Decline mechanisms.

• Event reminders don't need this
• Big department events, it's nice to have, but not necessary
• FYI for OOF and fun stuff doesn't need this
• Extremely large parties (ie. 1000 people party invitation) doesn't need this

In which of these cases will there be a need to negotiate the time or terms of the event? Do we need a projector? What is the agenda?

• Any kind of work * related meetings
• Asking for time with a High * level Manager
• 6 person party invitation
• Not birthday announcements
• Not I'm going to be on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" announcement

What about adding more people to events?

• This is probably a general need, but especially relevant to Adminstrative Assistants coordinating meetings for a High * level Manager, especially if they have to coordinate with people outside of the organization or with another High * level Manager. They often do this stepwise. First, they pin down the people with the busiest schedules and people who are absolutely central to the meeting, before inviting the rest of the people.

Do people need to be able to send a request for time without a specific time in mind? or a few proposed times?

• Asking for time with High * level Manager
• One High * level manager coordinating a meeting with another High * level manager

What about the ability to silently update the event versus sending out a PING to everyone on the list?

• Updating whether you are attending or not attending a large meeting (silent update)
• Adding a small item to the Agenda (silent update)
• Correcting a typo (silent update)
• Adding a new person to the invite to a lecture (silent update)
• Changing the location (PING)
• Major shift in agenda (PING)
• Rescheduling or Canceling the event (PING)

What about the ability to distinguish between FYI events and events that ask time of the person being pinged?

• Out of office announcements
• Fun thing happening announcements
• Birthdays and Holidays

What about canceling events?

• Meetings

What about the ability to delegate the right to invite on your behalf?

• Administrative Assistant doing most things for High * level Manager

STEP 3: IDENTIFY FEATURES BASED ON WORKFLOW GROUPINGS

Rather than having lots of different types of events: Meeting invites, FYI announcements and Broadcasts, Task reminders, etc.. Rather than having lots of different ways to respond to events: Acknowledge you received it, Accept, Tentatively Accept, Decline, Counter with a different time...

(The advantage of having a generic update feature is that the whole Accept, Tentatively Accept and Decline workflow doesn't need to be such an "in the face" part of the workflow. Accept/Decline is clearly not appropriate for any of the event types discussed above, except for meetings and party invitations. Then, you can get away with just having a single generic event type, because the system doesn't have to know about when to show or hide the Accept/Decline step of the workflow.)

FEATURE PROPOSAL

A single, generic event type

With a generic way for everybody listed on the event to Edit and Update the event

• Mark whether you're Attending, Tentatively attending or Declining
• Add participants
• Add a resource
• Edit the Event title
• Change the location
• Change the date/time and recurrence rules
• Edit the body (ie. the Agenda, Meeting notes)
• Add a comment

MORE ADVANCED FEATURES

• The ability to silently update the event with a lowercase "n"otification versus send out a capital "N"otification update.
• The ability to only send a capital "N"otification update to newly added people on the event.
• The ability to either receive "N"otifications individually or in a daily log of all notifications "N" or "n".

• Conversation area for each event, where people could hash out the details of the event.

• Comparison of the way Outlook does invitations and the way Chandler hopes to do invitations
  

• Invitation detail view in Chandler (this mockup does not show Accept/Decline event status for individual participants).