How can I “BE STRATEGIC” with all these Agilists running around asking me tactical questions?

Jeff Brantley

Enthiosys Senior Consultant

Contact me at:

jbrantley@enthiosys.com

jeffbrantley (twitter)

Motivated from Within®

About EnthiosysEnthiosys is an Agile Product Management Consulting Firm

About Jeff Brantley

Senior Consultant at EnthiosysAn Agile Product Management Consulting firm

Background• Product Strategy.• Product Mgmt Leadership, • Product Marketing,• Product Owner, • Sales,• Entrepreneurship

Special Expertise & Training • Scrum, (CSM)• Agile PM, • Backlog Prioritization,• Pragmatic Marketing,• Innovation Games®, • Agile Roadmapping

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BE STRATEGIC! But Serve the Team?

• The reality is that Agile teams sometimes implement Agile only in convenient bits and it causes more friction with PM than it should.

• Development is unwilling to commit to what will be delivered and when, because "Hey, we're Agile! We will tell you what we're done with when we're done with it!"

• Development does not want to look too far into the future because "Hey, we're Agile! We have to focus on the immediate priorities!"

• Development is demanding you to create the backlog. Then development complains at the crappy stories you wrote.

• The connection between what is strategically required in the product vs what development is actually doing each day is just not clear... for anyone!

• We will learn some tools and games to help regain your "strategic-ness"!

Acceptance Tests

User Stories

Pricing

Buy, Build or Partner

Operational Metrics

BusinessCase

SalesProcess

Product Portfolio

Market Requirements

MarketSizing

Product Roadmap

Market Research

Market Problems

Distinctive Competence

Product Performance

Positioning

Use Scenarios

InnovationWin/Loss Analysis

User Personas

Release Milestones

Technology Assessment

Competitive Analysis

MarketingPlan

Customer Acquisition

Customer Retention

LaunchPlan

Thought Leaders

Success Stories

Presentations & Demos

Competitive Write-Up

EventSupport

Channel Training

Collateral & Sales Tools

WhitePapers

“Special”Calls

AnswerDesk

Lead Generation

Buyer Personas

Market Analysis

Product Strategy

Program Strategy

Product Planning

Quantitative Analysis

Channel Support

SalesReadiness

Str

ate

gic Ta

ctic

al

Sprint Planning

Pragmatic-Expanded

Story

Acceptance

But Product owner roleAdds Tactical Duties

Product Mgmt/MkgStill responsible

For the wholeGrid!

Context: Planning Time Horizons

Daily

Sprint

Strategy

Portfolio

Product

Release

Exec

PM

DevTeam

2 wk

2-9 mon

many mons

years

many years

Agile prescribes teams to think of planning in specific, smaller batch contextsThis aids the team in focusing attention where it is most effective

The center of this diagram is what we call the “mushy middle”, where All manner of confusion usually exists in trying to achieve the strategy

The Agile Planning Flame

Daily

Sprint

Strategy

Portfolio

Product

Release

Planning Context:The key Product ManagementPlanning Ceremony is Agile Roadmapping

Agile RoadmappingHelps provide connectionBetween the higher levelStrategy and the lower,Tactical planning/delivery

Adding Agile Roadmapping to your regular product planning activitiesWill pull YOU (with support of your whole TEAM) upwards into strategic needs

This will lead to More of what we all need!

Innovation Through Understanding®

INNOVATION LIVES HERE

Know

Don’t KnowDon’t Know

You Don’t Know

Yup.

External Collaboration is Essential

Expanding the Innovation HorizonIBM Global Business Services

Really… external collaboration

External Collaboration – Twice as Much!

Internal Collaboration

So?

• Who do you talk with?• What do you talk about?• Is it working for you?

If we’re so AGILE, where are the collaboratingcustomers?

Hippocratic Oath

•“First, do no harm.”

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Hypocrisy Oath

•“No one spots hypocrisy better than your children.”

• (Do what I say, not what I do)QuickTime™ and a

decompressorare needed to see this picture.

Agile is an Umbrella

• Agile Project Management Framework (APM)• Scrum• Extreme Programming (XP)• Crystal Methods• Dynamic Systems Development Model (DSDM)• Rational Unified Process (RUP)• Feature Driven Development (FDD)• Lean Development• Rapid Application Development (RAD)

Truth or Hypocrisy? Agile Development

• We are told by Dev that Agile/Lean will:• Increase our flexibility• Decrease our risk• Increase our quality• Increase our responsiveness• Increase our reliability• Increase visibility into dev• Decrease our re-work or technical debt

• Oh, by the way you as Product Owner must:• Meet with us everyday and be available when we need you• Build the backlog and prioritize it so we can take it and build• Leave us alone (unless we need you)

Truth or Hypocrisy - Product

• I will make sure we are targeting the right user• Our business model is sustainable and

profitable• I know which segments (personas) care about

which benefits• I can bring in customers to validate hypothesis• I will not bow to the loudest voice (exec, sales,

customer, etc.) only• I am doing ongoing customer / market

research to learn about …

Simple Financial Goals Are Best!

Existing Customers

More Stuff New Stuff

More utilization(seats, Gb, etc.)

Modules, UpgradesRenewals

New Customers

Current Target New Segment

• individuals & interactions over processes and tools

• working software over lengthy documentation

• customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• responding to change over following a plan

“While there is value in items on the right, agile teams value items on the left more”

- agile manifesto

agile development values

Principles behind Agile Manifesto

We follow these principles:• Our highest priority is to satisfy the customerthrough early and

continuous deliveryof valuable software.• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile

processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.• Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a

couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.• Business people and developers must work together daily throughout

the project.• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the

environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

Principles behind Agile Manifesto

We follow these principles:(2 of 2)• Working software is the primary measure of progress.• Agile processes promote sustainable development. • The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a

constant pace indefinitely.• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design

enhances agility.• Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is

essential.• The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from

self-organizing teams.• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more

effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Example Roadmap Process

24

Estimates of Are Less Precise When Time Horizons are Longer

25

Daily

Sprint

Strategy

Portfolio

Product

Release

1 – 2 QTRS1 – 2 Months

1 – 2 Days

Note that as the time horizon increases the precision of our projections decreases. We still plan.

Reporting Progress:Velocity / Burn Down Charts

4

9

13

2019

1718

13

22

18

0

5

10

15

20

25

It. 1 It. 2 It. 3 It. 4 It. 5 It. 6 It. 7 It. 8 It. 9 It. 10 It. 11 It. 12 It. 13 It. 14 It. 15 It. 16 It. 17 It. 18 It. 19 It. 20

Planned Velocity Actual Velocity

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

Start It. 1 It. 2 It. 3 It. 4 It. 5 It. 6 It. 7 It. 8 It. 9 It. 10It. 11It. 12It. 13It. 14It. 15It. 16It. 17It. 18It. 19It. 20

Completed Points Remaining Points Plan Total Points

Velocity

Burn Up

Innovation Games can help!

Agile Market / Customer Research

Customer Needs

Requirements

Product Usage

Future Products

Innovation Games®

To understand…

… then consider these games

Pro

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ct

Box

Bu

y a

Featu

re

Me a

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My S

had

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Giv

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hem

A H

ot

Tu

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Rem

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Th

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utu

re

20/2

0 V

isio

n

Sp

eed

Boat

Sp

ider

Web

Sh

ow

An

d T

ell

Sta

rt Y

ou

r D

ay

Th

e A

pp

ren

tice

Pru

ne T

he P

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uct

Tre

e

Product Box

Activity:Ask your customers to imagine that they’re selling your product at a tradeshow, retail outlet, or public market. Give them a few cardboard boxes and ask them to literally design a product box that they would buy. The box should have the key marketing slogans that they find interesting. When finished, pretend that you’re a skeptical prospect and ask your customer to use their box to sell your product to you.

Goal:Identify the most exciting, sellable features.

Activity:Draw a boat on a whiteboard or sheet of butcher paper. You’d like the boat to really move fast. Unfortunately, the boat has a few anchors holding it back. The boat is your system, and the features that your customers don’t like are its anchors.Customers write what they don’t like on an anchor. They can also estimate how much faster the boat would go when that anchor was cut. Estimates of speed are really estimates of pain.

Speed Boat

Goal:Identify what customers don’t like (about your process or system).

Prune The Product Tree

Activity:Start by drawing a very large tree on a whiteboard. Thick limbs represent major areas of functionality within your system. The edge of the tree – its outermost branches – represent the features available in the current release. Write potential new features on several index cards, ideally shaped as leaves. Ask your customers to place desired features around the tree. Observe how the tree gets structured – does one branch get the bulk of the growth? Does an underutilized aspect become stronger?

Goal:Build a product according to your plans.

Spider Web

Activity:Put the name of your product or service in the center of a circle. Ask your customers to draw other products and services, ask them to tell you when, how, and why these are used. Ask them to draw lines between the different products and services.

As your customers reviews when and where they user your offering, you can capture the various inter-relationships that exist between the different products and service that they use throughout the day.

Goal:Clarify the operating context for your products and services.

Start Your Day

Activity:Ask your customer to describe the daily, weekly, monthly , and yearly events that are related to their use of your product on pre-printed, poster-sized calendars or a simple timeline on poster paper. Ask them to describe events in time frames appropriate for your project. Special event that are unique to an industry or sector (like a conference), or days in which everything goes horribly wrong and they’re looking for help. While they’re doing this, be alert for how your product helps – or hinders – their day.

Goal:Understand how and when your customer uses your product.

Remember the Future

Activity:Hand each of your customers a few pieces of paper. Ask them to imagine that it is sometime in the future and that they’ve been using your product almost continuously between now and that future date (month, year, whatever). Then ask them to write down exactly what your product will have done to make them happy or successful or rich or safe or secure or art – choose what works best for your product.Key point – ask “What will the system have done?” not “What should the system do?”

Goal:Understand your customer’s definition of success.

Buy a Feature

Activity:Create a list of features with an estimated cost. The cost can be development effort or actual cost you intend to charge for the feature. Customers buy features that they want.

Features are priced high enough that no singe customer can buy the features. This helps motivate customers to negotiate between themselves as to which features are most important. Observation of this negotiation provides great insight into what customers are willing to pay for.

Goal:Prioritize features.

Show and Tell

Activity:Ask your customers to bring examples of artifacts created or modified by your product or service. Ask them to tell you why these artifacts are important, and when and how they’re used.

Pay careful attention to anything that surprises you – artifacts you expected them to create or modify that they have ignored, artifacts that aren’t used, or artifacts used in unexpected ways.

Goal:Identify the most important artifacts created by your product.

Me and My Shadow

Activity:Shadow your customer while they use your product or service. Literally. Sit next to them and watch what they do. Periodically ask them “Why are you doing that?” and “What are you thinking?” Take along a camera or camcorder and record key activities. Ask for copies of important artifacts created or used by your customer while they are doing the work.

Goal:Identify your customer’s hidden needs.

Give Them A Hot Tub

Activity:Write several features on note cards, one feature per card. Include several completely outrageous features. If you’re making a portable MP3 player, try adding features like “heats coffee”, “cracks concrete” or “conditions dog hair”. If you’re making a system that manages payroll, try adding features like “plans family reunions” or “refinishes wooden floors”. If you’re building an office building, add a hot tub in the lobby. Observe what happens with a customer uncovers one of these outrageous features.

Goal:Use outrageous features to discover hidden breakthroughs.

20/20 Vision

Activity:When you’re getting fitted for glasses, your optometrist will often ask you to compare between two potential lenses by alternately showing each of them.Start by writing one feature each on large index cards. Shuffle the pile and put them face down. Take the first one form the top and put it on the wall. Take the next one and ask your customers if it is more or less important than the one on the wall. Place it above or below, depending on its relative importance. Repeat this with all of your feature cards.

Goal:Prioritize features.

The Apprentice

Activity:Ask your engineers and product developers to perform the “work” of the system that they are building. If they’re building a new data entry system, have them do the work of the current data entry operators. If they’re building workflow management software for furniture delivery people, have them deliver furniture. If they’re building a system to analyze vehicle performance data, ask them to change the oil in the car. They gain knowledge of the customer experience and some degree of empathy for the real problem that your customer is trying to solve.

Goal:Create empathy for the customer experience.

My Worst Nightmare

Activity:Provide participants with a large sheet of paper and markers or other office supplies. Ask them to imagine their "worst nightmare" related to the product or service that you're researching. For example, suppose you're researching preferences in home repair services. In this case, you'd ask homeowners to draw a caricature of their "worst nightmare" handyman. Of course, their "worst nightmare" doesn’t have to be an actual individual. It could be simply a collection of characteristics or attributes.  After the illustrations are complete, ask participants to present their “worst nightmare” to the group.

Encourage the group to listen for descriptions of positive/negative attributes or behaviors and surprising comments. If the "worst nightmare" is a person, consider how they frame roles and responsibilities. Besides allowing for psychological venting, the game’s structure and metaphor will produce key insights and pertinent issues so that you can create sweet dreams for your customers. 

Goal: Discover hidden and/or unconsidered worst-case scenarios

Categorizing the Games

Innovation Games OrganizedDegree of Open-Ended Exploration

Innovation Games OrganizedDegree of Scalability

Innovation Games OrganizedTime-Frame of Action

Innovation Games OrganizedDegree of Customer Preparation

Innovation Games OrganizedDegree of Market Preparation

Innovation Games OrganizedDegree of Physical Preparation

When You’re Not Sure, Start Here

Use This Game…

To Understand…

Speed Boat What you need to improve

Buy a Feature What features you need to build next

Product Box New possibilities

Spider Web How / where your product fits in

Thanks… Questions?

• Thank you for your time!• jbrantley@enthiosys.com• (512) 426-4830

• See Also:• www.enthiosys.com/problems-we-solve/agile-roadmaps/• www.innovationgames.com