agile product management essentials for project and program managers
Post on 13-Sep-2014
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DESCRIPTION
This September webinar for PMI’s Agile Community of Practice laid out the basics of tech product management, how it maps against project/program management, and how agile shifts these (traditional) roles.TRANSCRIPT
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AGILE PRODUCT MANAGEMENT ESSENTIALS FOR PROJECT AND PROGRAM MANAGERS
Rich Mironov13 September 2012
PMI Agile Community of Practice
2W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
• “Product guy” at 6 startups• Most recently as CEO/founder• Software as revenue
• Author• “The Art of Product Management” • Product Bytes blog• Business models, agile, organizing product teams
• Chaired first Agile product stages• Founded Product Camp
ABOUT ME
3W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
DISJOINT COMMUNITIES
ProductManagers
AgileCommunities
Not enough overlap
or shared thinking
• What does a product manager do?• Product vs. Project/Program Management• Agile, product managers and product
owners• Take-aways
AGENDA
• For commercial / revenue software…• Drives delivery and market acceptance of whole products• Targets market segments, not individual customers
• For strategic internal development…• Drives acceptance and adoption• Resolves inevitable competing priorities
WHAT DOES A PRODUCT MANAGER DO?
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W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
market information, priorities,requirements, roadmaps, epics,
user stories, backlogs, personas, MRDs…
product bits
strategy, forecasts, commitments, roadmaps, competitive intelligence
budgets, staff,targets
Field input,Market feedback
Segmentation, messages, benefits/features, pricing,
qualification, demos…
Markets & CustomersDevelopment
Marketing& Sales
Executives
ProductManagement
WHAT DOES A PRODUCT MANAGER DO?
7
PRAGMATIC MARKETING FRAMEWORK
Pricing
Buy, Build or Partner
BusinessPlan
Product Profitability
Win/Loss Analysis
Distinctive Competence
Market Problems
MarketingPlan
Customer Acquisition
Customer Retention
Program Effectiveness
BuyingProcess
Buyer Personas
UserPersonas
Positioning
Product Portfolio
Market Definition
Distribution Strategy
InnovationCompetitive Landscape
Technology Assessment
Lead Generation
Thought Leadership
Referrals & References
LaunchPlan
UseScenarios
Require- ments
Status Dashboard
Product Roadmap
Presentations & Demos
EventSupport
“Special”Calls
ChannelSupport
Channel Training
SalesProcess
Collateral
SalesTools
BusinessMarket ProgramsPlanningStrategy SupportReadinessBusinessMarket ProgramsPlanningStrategy SupportReadiness
ProductMarketingManager
Technical Product Manager
Director of Product Strategy
© 1993-2009 Pragmatic Marketing, Inc. All rights reserved
Good product managers drive customer-relevant
decisions (choices) despite uncertainty and
contradictory goals
9W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
• No natural sequence • Intensely interrupt driven• Bottom-up meets top-down
• Demands strategy, judgment andintegration as well as execution
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT RHYTHM
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W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M 10
IDEAL CANDIDATE
• What does a product manager do?• Product vs. Project / Program
Management• Agile, product managers and product
owners• Take-aways
AGENDA
Disclaimers• No role/title consistency• Unclear division of labor• Execs create novel organizations• Each tech company is
uniquely dysfunctional• Good teams make things work
in spite of titles and roles
PRODUCT, PROJECT, PROGRAM?
• Project/Program Managers tasked with how to deliver• Not-so-secretly worry about
market success
• Product Managers tasked with what to build (and when)• Not-so-secretly worry about delivery,
quality, completeness
ONE PROBLEM, TWO VIEWPOINTS
• Product Management: more outward-facing market-visible decisions• What FEATURES/BENEFITS are market segments
demanding?• How are we POSITIONED and PRICED versus competitors? • WHICH must-ship feature will we DROP first? • SALES impact of slipped dates? Commitments?
• Project/Program Management: more inward-facing resource allocation decisions• HOW should we get this done? WHO works on what?• WHEN will it actually ship?• Have we defined and met QUALITY goals?• What outside RESOURCES could speed things up?
IN A PERFECT ORGANIZATION…
Product managers sense the market by…• Helping close deals• Trading off conflicting
customer commitments• Sweating price/volume forecasts • Identifying novel (or terrible) user cases• Anchoring opinions with lots of
first person customer/field input
LIVING THE CUSTOMER’S REALITY
Source:Pragmatic Marketing
• What does a product manager do?• Product vs. Project / Program Management• Agile, product managers and product
owners• Take-aways
AGENDA
17W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
We tend to mix…• Philosophy and religion• Process, tools, techniques, methods• Organizational design
DISCUSSIONS OF AGILE
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W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M 18
AGILE METHODS
Extreme Program
ming (XP)
Crystal Methods
Scrum Feature Driven
Development (FDD)
Test Driven
Development (TDD)
Dynamic Systems
& Development Model (DSDM)
Lean & Lean Startup
Agile Project
Management
Framework (APM)
Rational Unified Process (RUP)
Rapid Applicatio
n Development (RAD)
• Why development teams want Agile• Focus more on developing, not SDLC• More quality, fewer peaks and valleys• Build what customers want• Move the bottleneck elsewhere
• What executives want from Agile• Get more done (more “ROI”)• Faster, more predictable• “More responsive to market” means
they can juggle the roadmap more often
DIFFERENT MOTIVATORS
20
WHY NOT WATERFALL?
Waterfall projects rarely
deliver according to
plan
Requirements and estimates
Coding and unit test
System integration &
QA
Operation and maintenance
Design
21W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
AGILE’S INNER LOOP
From Mike Cohn
W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
AGILE’S STRATEGIC OUTER LOOP (PdM)
22
•Markets•Customers•Biz Models•Strategy•Portfolios•Funding
•Customers•Sales•Marketing•Support•Upgrades•EOL/EOS
23W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
PRODUCT MANAGER, PRODUCT OWNER
• Most agilists think about “product owners”• Formal part of agile team• Needs to be physically present• Driving user stories and sub-iteration decisions• Showcases are primary method of customer input
• Most product managers are not agilists• Majority of work to deliver products (revenue) happens outside
Engineering• Interacts with markets directly, not filtered through Sales or Marketing• Servicing multiple inbound and outbound queues
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PRODUCT OWNER’S CALENDAR
Borrowed from Catherine Connor, Rally
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W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
market information, priorities, epics, user stories,
backlogs, personas…
product bits
Markets & CustomersDevelopment
Marketing& Sales
Executives
ProductManagement
‘Small p’ PRODUCT OWNER
26
ADAPTED PRAGMATIC FRAMEWORK
Pricing
Buy, Build or Partner
BusinessPlan
Product Profitability
Win/Loss Analysis
Distinctive Competence
Market Problems
MarketingPlan
Customer Acquisition
Customer Retention
Program Effectiveness
BuyingProcess
Buyer Personas
UserPersonas
Positioning
Product Portfolio
Market Definition
Distribution Strategy
InnovationCompetitive Landscape
Technology Assessment
Lead Generation
Thought Leadership
Referrals & References
LaunchPlan
UseScenarios
Require ments
Status Dashboard
Product Roadmap
Presentations & Demos
EventSupport
“Special”Calls
ChannelSupport
Channel Training
SalesProcess
Collateral
SalesTools
Business
MarketProgram
sPlannin
gStrateg
ySupport
Readiness
Business
MarketProgram
sPlannin
gStrateg
ySupport
Readiness
product owner
backlog,
accept work
epics & stories
burn down/up
27W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
PdM/PO FAILURE MODES
Product Manager fails agile team if• Part-time, disengaged• Stories lack detail• Stale backlog• Best of intentions, but pulled
in too many directions
• Not buffering team from customer/ sales interruptions
• “Build what I meant”
Product Owner fails marketplace if• Weak on market realities:
pricing, packaging, selling, upgrades, service models, discounting, competitive dynamics
• Disconnected from Marketing, Sales, Support
• Trading off company-wide strategy for product features
• Confuses showcase customers with broader market
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W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M 28
ONE PdM/PO ORGANIZATIONAL MAP
ProductManagers
GM / VP Eng / VP Prod / CPO
ProductOwners
more technical more market-focused
29W W W. M I R O N O V. C O M
• Product management struggles with market success, product sufficiency and inconsistent customer segments
• Project management struggles with resources, timelines and unreasonable commitments
• IMHO, simple product owner role fails to address market complexities
• We need to work together to ship great products!
TAKE-AWAYS
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CONTACTMironov Consulting233 Franklin St, Suite #308San Francisco, CA 94102
RichMironov
@RichMironov