Inception Deck

Purpose

The Inception Deck (also known as Agile Inception) is a structured set of conversations that answers the ten questions every new project must address: Why are we here? Elevator pitch? Package design? NOT list? Neighbours? Show the solution? Risks? Size it up? Trade-offs? What's going to give?

At a glance

How to run

1. Why are we here? (10 min) — State the project purpose in one sentence.
2. Elevator pitch (15 min) — Craft a concise pitch using Moore's template.
3. Package design (15 min) — Design the product's packaging: what would make someone pick it off a shelf?
4. NOT list (10 min) — List what is in scope and explicitly what is NOT.
5. Meet the neighbours (10 min) — Identify all stakeholders and teams affected.
6. Show the solution (15 min) — Sketch a high-level architecture or solution diagram.
7. What keeps us up at night? (10 min) — List risks and rate likelihood and impact.
8. Size it up (10 min) — Rough timeline and effort estimate.
9. Trade-off sliders (10 min) — Rank scope, time, budget, and quality on fixed sliders.
10. What's it going to take? (15 min) — Define team composition, skills needed, and cost.

Materials needed

• Inception Deck template (slides or canvas)
• Whiteboard and markers
• Sticky notes
• Trade-off slider template

Pitfalls & common mistakes

• Rushing through exercises — Each question deserves real discussion; do not treat them as checkboxes.
• Only technical people in the room — Business stakeholders must participate, especially for scope and trade-offs.
• Deck is filed and forgotten — Revisit the deck when priorities shift or scope changes.
• Skipping the NOT list — Explicitly stating what is out of scope prevents feature creep.

Inclusion & accessibility

• Provide the ten questions and any pre-reading 48 hours in advance.
• Use visual exercises (package design, solution sketch) to engage non-verbal thinkers.
• Allow remote participants to contribute via a digital whiteboard.

Variations

• Lean inception — Paulo Caroli's week-long version with deeper exercises for vision, personas, and MVP.
• Half-day inception — Prioritise the five most critical questions for the project context.
• Ongoing inception — Revisit one or two deck items each Sprint during planning.

When NOT to use this

• If the project is a small enhancement with no new stakeholders or uncertainty.
• If the team has already been running the project for months — a retrospective is more appropriate.

Source & further reading

• Rasmusson, J. (2010). *The Agile Samurai*. Pragmatic Bookshelf.
• Caroli, P. (2018). *Lean Inception*. Caroli.org.