lean out your product backlog with lean product development and business analysis techniques -...

Lean out your Product Backlog

Pascal Van CauwenbergheNayima

“Here we are now.Entertain us.”

Kurt Cobain, American Philosopher

His Blog: blog.nayima.be

NAYIMAWe make play work

Consultant. Project Manager. Games Maker.

And so it begins…

We’re going Agile!

Congratulations

What do I do now?

Write User Stories

A Vomit of User Stories

Prioritise User Stories

We need Business Value on each card

HELP!

There has to be a better way

I’d like to have a chat with you about...

1. Some Business Analysis tools

That I’ve used the past 10 years

2. Tell war stories

Projects where we used the tools

3. Explain why we do this

3. Explain why we do this

Before After

4. You may have to do some work

5. Share some more wisdom from American philosophers

Who are your top 3 stakeholders?What is their #1 goal?

You have 2 mins to share with your neighbour

Goal TableStakeholder Goal Tests and

MeasuresCapabilities Risks

Stakeholder, n: Role, Team or Organisation involved or affected by the projectGoal, n: What a stakeholder wants to achieveCapability, n: Something we need to achieve the goal. Necessary, but maybe not sufficientTest, n: A way to decide if a goal has been achievedMeasure, n: A way to determine how close we are to a goalRisk, n: Negative consequences of achieving the goal

A Phone CompanyStakeholder Goal Tests and Measures

Customer Operations Manager

Provide good customer service

50% reduction of customer complaints within a year

Customers recommend our service to friends

Net Promoter Score

Reduce costs Number of calls to call center

Customer Remain contactable when changing providers

No missed messagesMax 30 mins unreachable

Focus on goals not means

Quantify stakeholder goals

The Logical Thinking Process

The Logical Thinking Process

Intermediate Objectives

Map

Current Reality Tree

Conflict Resolution

Diagram

Future Reality Tree

Prerequisite/Transition

TreeWhat is our goal?What are we missing?

Why don’t we have what we need?

What could be done to resolve the underlying fundamental conflict?

Would that work?What could possibly go wrong?

How do we get there?In small steps.

Using the Logical Thinking Process

Intermediate Objectives

Map

Current Reality Tree

Conflict Resolution

Diagram

Future Reality Tree

Prerequisite/Transition

Tree

Stakeholder Goal Capabilities Tests and Measures

Risks

Context Diagram

Phone Intermediate Objectives Map

Add service

Get request

Perform request

Confirm request

How difficult could it be?

Update billing

Provision service

A Phone CompanyStakeholder Goal Tests and

MeasuresCapability

Customer Operations Manager

Provide good customer service

50% reduction of customer complaints within a year

Customers recommend our service to friends

Net Promoter Score

Reduce costs Number of calls to call center

Ensure provisioningNotify customer

Customer Remain contactable when changing providers

No missed messagesMax 30 mins unreachable

Derive capabilities from goals

Some customers seem to have the phone number of our CEO...

What are the criteria your organisation uses to select and prioritise work?

You have 2 mins to share with your neighbour

“Party like it’s 1999”

, American Philosopher

It’s 1999

While people are getting worried about Y2K…

Project E

• Goal: Build an online bank that sells mortgage loans in Sweden– And then in other European countries

• Constraint: integrate with Swedish government databases

• Constraint: 2 developers• Constraint: the press conference for the

launch is in 2.5 months

What happened?

• We launched on time• Full-featured frontend• Combination of manual and automated

processes• One country at first, then expanded to Europe• All manual processes were automated gradually

as customer base grew• Money coming in invested in backoffice

automation

Press conference

Curious customers can ask for quote

Good looking frontend

Integration with Swedish government Databases

Ease of use

Implement Swedish Business Rules

Scale number of customers

Expand to other countries

Business Value Model

• Diagram of effects• What are the important goals?• How will we achieve the goals?• What are our constraints?

• This is our strategy• This is our definition of value

A Phone CompanyStakeholder Goal Tests and Measures

Customer Operations Manager

Provide good customer service

50% reduction of customer complaints within a year

Customers recommend our service to friends

Net Promoter Score

Reduce costs Number of calls to call center

Customer Remain contactable when changing providers

No missed messagesMax 30 mins unreachable

For example

Customer satisfaction

Call center cost# calls

Successful transactions

Customer loss

Reliable process

Request confirmation

Regulations

Leading Lagging

Project Economic Framework

Using the Logical Thinking Process

Intermediate Objectives

Map

Current Reality Tree

Conflict Resolution

Diagram

Future Reality Tree

Prerequisite/Transition

Tree

Business Value Model

Stakeholder Goal Capabilities Tests and Measures

Risks

Plan

Context Diagram

Business Value Model == Hypothesis

Make reasoning & assumptions explicitVerify regularly and improve

PDCA cycle

Plan

DoCheck

Act

Product Development cycle

Model Value

ImplementDeploy & measure

Learn

Plan

DoCheck

Act

Create a Business Value hypothesis

Verify and improve your Business Value hypothesis

Early and often

“Coin an acronym and you have a profitable

consulting business”

Dave Nicolette, American philosopher

IDDIrritation Driven Development

TM

IDDYou heard it here first

TM

Everybody participates in building the models

The Kano Model

• Stupid features• Table stakes• Linear features

“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said

‘Faster horses’”

Henry Ford, American philosopher

The Kano Model

• Stupid features• Table stakes• Linear features

Exciters

WOW! I didn’t know you could do that!

“The big print giveth.The small print taketh

away”

Tom Waits, American philosopher

What could possibly go wrong?Stakeholder Goal Tests and

MeasuresCapabilities Risks

Customer ConvenienceReduce costs

Yearly transaction costPayback in 6 months

Recommend appropriate product

???

Sponsor Profitability Product profitability

Recommend appropriate product

???

Political riskStakeholder Goal Tests and

MeasuresCapabilities Risks

Customer ConvenienceReduce costs

Yearly transaction costPayback in 6 months

Recommend appropriate product

Find out they have been paying too much

Sponsor Profitability Product profitability

Recommend appropriate product

Move profits between departments A and B

One type of product is the responsibility of division AOther type of product is the responsibility of division BDivision manager bonus is based on revenue of division…

Find one risk of success on your project

You have 2 mins to share with your neighbour

What are the dangers of success?

“The chief cause of problems is solutions”

Eric Sevareid, American philosopher

“When do we (finally) start writing User Stories?”

We thought you were an Agile coach?

And can’t we start coding yet?

Writing stories made easy

Stakeholder Goal Capability Test and measure

Risk

TO ACHIEVE ...

AS A ...

I NEED ...

IT’S DONE WHEN ...

TO NOT ACHIEVE ...

PASSES

I NEED ... Another capability

AS A... TO ACHIEVE... I NEED... I KNOW I GOTIT WHEN...

GOTCHAS

User Story Carpaccio

Goal Table Project Level StoryProject Level Story

Project Level StoryProject Level Story

Release Level Story

Release Level Story

Release Level Story

Release Level Story

Iteration Level Story

Iteration Level Story

Iteration Level Story

Iteration Level Story

Release Level Story

Derive detailed stories from goals

Step by step

Kanban board

TODO BUSY Accept DONEIterationReleaseValue

Integrate analysis into your flow

From Value to Cash

Help! My developers have gone Kanban!

Conflict Resolution Diagram

Objective

Prerequisite 1Requirement 1

Prerequisite 2Requirement 2

Conflict Resolution Diagram

Satisfy growing customer base

Detailed estimates and plans

Reliable long term roadmap

No estimatesNo planning

Be more efficient

How would you solve this?

Conflict Resolution Diagram

Satisfy growing customer base

Detailed estimates and plans

Reliable long term roadmap

No estimatesNo planning

Be more efficient

Assumption: estimating is the only wayto determine the cost of a feature

What if…

• We didn’t have to estimate to have a cost?• We didn’t have to create detailed stories to

estimate and plan?

• But that’s not possible, is it?

Conflict Resolution Diagram

Satisfy growing customer base

Set budget andBuild to budget

Reliable long term roadmap

No estimatesNo planning

Be more efficient

Detailed estimates and plans

Building the roadmap

• Put stakeholder goals in the roadmap, not features– More implementation freedom– More meaningful for customers

• Estimate the value of each goal in the roadmap• Decide how much you want to invest to realise the

value – As a percentage of the capacity of the team

• Create a roadmap based on value and budget– Not cost

Building the roadmap

Goal 1Value / Budget

Goal 4Value/Budget

Goal 3Value/Budget

Goal 2Value/Budget

Release 1 Release 2

Goal 1Value / Budget

Implementing the roadmap

• For each release, the product manager and team decide how to achieve goals, given the budget

• Don’t have to stick to individual budgets as long as release budget is respected

• Constraints create a challenge• Which leads to more creativity

• Monitor flow of stories and handle risks

Would you rather haggle…

…or solve problems?

Respectful Challenge

Make it a problem-solving exercise

That’s what we’re good at

Keep focus

Don’t work on 1000 goals at the same time

Don’t outrun your customers

Dev teamThe Business Operations

Backlog

The Bottleneck

Don’t outrun your customers

Dev teamThe Business OperationsBacklog

The Bottleneck

6 releases per year

2 releases per year

4 customers are faster than 1

Dev team

Sales

Operations

Backlog

The Bottleneck

Production

FinanceAudit

Customers

6 releases per year

2 major releases per year per group

We don’t call them “The Business”We call us “We”

Dev team

Sales

Operations

Backlog

Production

FinanceAudit

Customers

6 releases per year

2 releases per year per group

Integrate deeply with your customer

Yes, but! No, but!

Commonly heard objections

• “We’ve spent 6 months on analysis already”• “Business Value is impossible to measure”• “This is waterfall analysis, it’s not agile”• “This is too hard”• “Doing this with the whole team is a waste of

time”• “It’s too structured”

The Phone Company

Before• Already spent 2 months on

analysis• Identified 60 features• 2 years worth of work• “We need web-based self-

service”• Reluctantly agreed to do a

few days of analysis training

After• Only 10 out of those 60

features delivered value• Identified 4 new features

crucial to the success of the project

• 25% of the value could be delivered within one month; no need for a web application

The Chemicals Company

Before• Asked consultancy to

provide bid• Consultants did 3 months of

analysis• Estimate: 9 months of

development• Customer asked us for a

second opinion

After• 2 weeks to provide bid• Estimate: 3 months of

development• Customer increased value

by exchanging features during the project

• Delivered one day early

The Transport Company

Before• A new team on their first

Agile project• Two days of business analysis

with the whole team• “Aren’t we wasting too much

time analysing?”• “Why are the developers

here?”• “When can we start coding?”

After• In production 3 months

earlier than predicted• “I can’t believe we already

released. Normally we’d still be doing analysis.”

• Developers came up with a new use for existing data, with large financial and ecological benefits

The Transport Company

Before• Development teams deliver

more, faster thanks to agile methods

• Real bottleneck is test and deploy: several months between development and deployment

• Delivering more is making things worse

• No budget to improve test and deploy

After• Every agile project has

quantified value• Cost of deployment delay

becomes visible: millions per month

• Cost of improving test and deploy is insignificant compared to cost of delay

• Started test and deploy improvement

To summarize

These are the only things you need to know to pass the test

Just remember

• Focus on stakeholder goals, not means• Model and measure value• Apply the science of product development

and systems thinking to generate questions• Tap into everyone’s creativity• Analyse just-in-time using pull• Make it a problem-solving exercise• There’s a lot more where this came from

Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK)

International Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA)

www.theiiba.org

From the BABOK

“Business analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison among stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organization, and to recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.”

The Agile Extension to the BABOK

• The Agile extension gives guidance on how to perform business analysis on Agile projects

• Overview available on IIBA website• We need your input and review

Yahoo group: Agile_BA_Requirements

“I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go into

the other room and read a book”

Groucho Marx, American philosopher

If you want to know more

Merci

Thank You

Dank u

www.agilecoach.netwww.nayima.beblog.nayima.be

If you want to know more