using class of service to manage risk in new product development

@toolsforagile facebook.com/ToolsForAgile

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Class Of Service For Managing Risk In Innovative New

Product Dev

Siddharta [email protected]

Sreekanth [email protected]


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Siddharta GovindarajDirector, Silver Stripe Software Pvt Ltd

Email: [email protected]: @toolsforagile

Sreekanth TadipatriSenior Consultant, DeccanTech

Email: [email protected]: @bugbasher


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Not all features are equal


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Example feature types

Login: Well understood feature

Subscription: Well understood, high value feature

Game mechanics: Is it fun? High uncertainty

User Interface: High technology uncertainty


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The degree of feature newness

Newnessto the Company

Newness to the target customers

New-to-the-worldHigh

Low

Reduced Costs

Repositioning

20%

26%

10%

7%

26%

Low High

11%

NewLines

Revisions / Improvements


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Functionality

Well Understood High Uncertainty

Commodity Market Uncertainty

Technical Uncertainty


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Commodity

MarketUncertainty

TechnologyUncertainty


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Basic

Performance

Excitement

Take pictures, browse and delete pictures, autofocus

File formats, camera modes, pre-set settings

Image quality, resolution, changable lens, underwater use


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Expedite

Emergency Bug


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Class of Service Criteria

Expedite Emergency bug fixes that need to be fixed and deployed in a few days

Fixed Date Features that have a fixed deadline

High Uncertainty Features exposed to market or technical uncertainty.

Basic Basic features from the Kano model

High Value Differentiating features from the Kano model

Investment Intangible, long term improvements, to be picked up during times of slack

Normal Everything else


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Expedite

* Only for emergency bug fixes* Moves to the head of backlog and all queues* Can override work in progress limits* Team members stop whatever they are working on and swarm to complete this work item


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High Uncertainty

* High market or technology risk* Focus on cheap prototype* Skip automated test stage


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High Value

* Requires user experience stage* Requires additional automated tests* Requires additional manual exploratory tests


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Benefits

Better business – development alignment

Risk oriented view of the backlog


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Risk Oriented Pull Policy

For commodity features, we focus on business value

For uncertainty, we need to focus on risk mitigation


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To mitigate product risk, focus on learning

Market Risk: Make cheap prototypes and validate them with your target market

Technology Risk: Spike early to understand technical challenges

Don't (yet) worry about quality or delivering every sprint


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Risk oriented view

What if you have many high uncertainty items on the backlog?


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Risk oriented view

What is the mixture of basic, linear and differentiating work items?


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Risk oriented view

Can we amortize highly risky features over a period of time by breaking them down into smaller pieces and tackle them one by one?


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Risk oriented view

Should we balance a release containing a high uncertainty feature with well understood basic features?


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Risk oriented view

What is the long term impact of having too many expedite requests?


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Questions?

Siddharta GovindarajDirector, Silver Stripe Software Pvt Ltd

Email: [email protected]: @toolsforagile

Sreekanth TadipatriSenior Consultant, DeccanTech

Email: [email protected]: @bugbasher


#lssc11

Picture Credits

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twicepix/4837076726/sizes/l/

Ian Lamont http://ilamont.blogspot.com