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Putting Lean into Product Management

When does it make sense?

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Lean (in one pic, one of many versions)

Lean Enterprise Institute

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Product Management

Roman Pichler

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Life Cycle changes contextGrowth Ascent MaturityR&D

Time

Changing context

3 Horizons by Baghai, Coley, White

Horizon 10 - 12 months

Horizon 212 - 36 months

Horizon 336 - 72 months

Current businessGenerate today’s

cash flow

High growth businessToday’s growth &

tomorrow’s cash flow

Options growthOptions on future

high growth business

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Horizon 1 = grow with the market More of the same != hockey stick

The Knowledge Funnel by

Roger L. Martin

Commodity

Product

Custom Built

Ubi

quit

yN

ovel

Com

mon

Certainty DefinedUnknown

Dem

and

Supply

Genesis

Product Phases

Model: Simon Wardley

Model by Simon Wardley

Vis

ibili

ty

Evolution

Kontext determines methodUnknown

chaoticinsecure

unpredictableunstabledifferentexciting

future valuesdifferentiating

Industrialised

ordered (linear)knownmeasuredstablestandardboringsmall marginessentiell

Genesis Custom built Product Utility

agile / in-housestrong weak

outsourced / six sigmaweak strong

Lean

Model by Simon Wardley

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

A place for Agile / Lean

Uncharted activities & rapid change (due to their properties i.e. they're uncertain and we're discovering them): Agile is the most appropriate method, as higher cost of change compared

to the requirements / design phase of a structured method, there will however be change throughout the project's life.

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

A place for other …

When industrialised acts defined (Scaling), these should be well understood and highly repeatable and thus are more effectively managed by a highly structured method because

change shouldn't exist and where it is necessary it should be eliminated in the requirement / design phase.  This leads to a situation where different methods e.g. Agile, Lean Production, Six

Sigma are suitable for different evolutionary stages

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

A place for just tools

When we are still discovering the value, the work is chaotic and none repeatable, even looking for planned randomness.

Here we are looking for tools that are spontaneously applied, like customer interviews, customer observation, ideation, story telling and other „creative“ techniques.

Vis

ibili

ty

Evolution

Kontext determines methodUnknown

chaoticinsecure

unpredictableunstabledifferentexciting

future valuesdifferentiating

Industrialised

ordered (linear)knownmeasuredstablestandardboringsmall marginessentiell

Genesis Custom built Product Utility

Lean

outsourced / six sigmaweak strong

agile / in-housestrong weak

Model by Simon Wardley

quality of methodnone heavy

Vis

ibili

ty

Evolution

Kontext determines methodUnknown

chaoticinsecure

unpredictableunstabledifferentexciting

future valuesdifferentiating

Industrialised

ordered (linear)knownmeasuredstablestandardboringsmall marginessentiell

Genesis Custom built Product Utility

Kanban

Model by Simon Wardley

Scrum

e.g. Design Thinking

6 Sigma

Properties of work

Find area of global optimumApproaching local optimumGrinding towards

local optimum

Informed (big) bet Informed guessKnown

H1 H2 H3

Depth Speed & RawPrecision

Identify customer jobs qualitative data,some

quantititive data, lots of

good enough solution

Identify problemsOptimize solution

new categoryIteration Paperware

No „Flow

“

Chaotic

Stutte

ring

DrivenFlo

w /

Evolutio

n

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Informed guessing: Simulated annealing

✸✸✸

∼2567m

✸✸ ✸

∼834m✸✸

✸

∼2834m

✸✸ ✸

∼1234m

✸✸✸

∼3534m✸✸✸

∼1847m

✸✸✸

∼746m

✸

✸✸

✸

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

AI, Chip Design: Randomness integral part of optimization

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”But …

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”Scaling Agile & Lean

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Scaling = optimizing Revenue / Headcount

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Google

Apple

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

IBM

P&G

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Productivity target for scaling

At least constant rev/employee

Standard situation

Find area of global optimum

Informed guesses

Approaching local optimum

Informed big bet

Grinding towards local optimum

Known

H1 H2 H3

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Product Owners/Managers look out:

„I want more, I want it now“-Karma can kill you!

Standard situation

Find area of global optimum

Informed guesses

Approaching local optimum

Informed big bet

Grinding towards local optimum

Known

H1 H2 H3

Where Agile lives

How not to scale

Find area of global optimum

Informed guesses

Approaching local optimum

Informed big bet

Grinding towards local optimum

Known

H1 H2 H3

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Revenue / Headcount:

Scaling

Find area of global optimum

Informed guesses

Approaching local optimum

Informed big bet

Grinding towards local optimum

Known

H1 H2 H3

Reduce self harm

Identify growth opportunity

Place bet

Generate demand

Add people to serve demand

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”Summary

Work on all 3 Horizons all the time

Finding area of global optimumInformed guesses

Approaching local optimumInformed big bet

Grinding towards local optimum

Known

Depth

Speed

PrecisionHint:

A Kanban board itselfalready expresses the wish for order