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Product Management in an Agile World

Paul Brownell

Hemant Elhence

February 4, 2010

© 2009, 2010 Paul Brownell. All Rights Reserved

Sponsored By

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Paul Brownell

• 15 years as a software executive

• Agile practitioner since 2001

• Specialist in Scrum and Outsourcing

• As Product Line Director at BMC, led several SCRUM teams distributed across India, Israel, and the US

• Highlighted in Dean Leffingwell’s book

“ Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises ”

2© 2009, 2010 Paul Brownell, All Rights Reserved

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Objectives

• Clarify role of Product Manager in Agile teams

• Recognize key challenges for Product Managers

• Learn to align organization models to Agile methods

• Define the right level of requirements, granularity and priority

• Adapt Agile Product Management to global distributed teams

• Answer “What are you going to deliver, and when will it be ready?”

• Avoid common pitfalls


ComprehensiveDocumentation

ComprehensiveDocumentation

Processes and Tools

Processes and Tools

Contract Negotiation

Contract Negotiation

Following a PlanFollowing a Plan

Agile Fundamentals

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Scrum Process


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Scrum Roles


Product Owner

• Develops backlog

• Determines priorities

• Serves as proxy for the user/customer

• Identifies business value

• Relates work units to business

objectives

• Defines acceptance criteria

• Interacts daily with teams

Scrum Master

• Facilitates development process

• Coordinates with other teams

• Provides status information

• Removes blocks and protects

from interruption

• Ensures implementation of

lessons learned

Team

•Designs software

•Codes Software

•Tests software

•Documents software

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Product Manager Role


Product Owner





• Relates work units to business objectives



Product Manager

• Develops strategy

• Analyzes markets

• Manages portfolio

• Sets pricing

• Builds business partnerships

• Promotes product

• Supports sales

• Interacts with customers

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#1 Role Conflicts


Product Owner





• Relates work units to business objectives



Product Manager

• Develops strategy

• Analyzes markets

• Manages portfolio

• Sets pricing

• Builds business partnerships

• Promotes product

• Supports sales

• Interacts with customers

customers team

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#1 Role ConflictsSurvival Tips

• Identify a Proxy: Business Analyst, Architect, Lead Developer or Lead QA

• Involve customers/clients to provide direct feedback and input

• Provide windows of scheduled availability

• Make time for: Release Planning, Sprint Planning, Demos


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#2 Adapting to Distributed TeamsChallenges

• Minimal face-to-face time

• Different time zones

• Language and culture barriers

• Hard to ‘sketch on a napkin’

• Discussions by email


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#2 Adapting to Distributed TeamsSurvival Tips

• Identify a Proxy in the same time zone: Business Analyst, Architect, Lead Developer, Lead QA

• Provide windows of scheduled availability.

• Make time for: Release Planning, Sprint Planning, Demos

• Attend daily standups if you can, or arrange regular touch points with the team


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Organization Structures –Combined Role


customer team customer

Product Manager/Owner 1

Product Manager/Owner 2

Product A-F Product G-L

• Advantages

– Clear connection to customer

– Clear understanding of release status and content

• Keys to success

– Good proxies

– Careful time management

Product Line Owner

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team

Organization Structures –Split Role (Large Company, Many Products)

• Advantages

– Clear functional focus

– Match skills to function

– PO can co-locate

• Keys to success

– PM & PO tightly connected


customer

Product Manager

Products A-F Products A-F

Products G-LProducts G-L

Product Owner

Product Line Owner

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team team

Organization Structures –Split Role (Small Company, Many Products)

• Advantages

– Clear functional focus

– Match skills to function

– PO can co-locate

• Keys to success

– PM & PO tightly connected

– Careful PM time management


customer

Product Owner 1

Products A-F Products G-L

Product Owner 2

Product Manager

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#3 Planning Continuously Challenges

• Regular re-examination of priorities

• Smaller granularity deliverables

• Forest is built one tree at a time

• More meetings


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#3 Planning ContinuouslySurvival Tips

• Just-in-time deliverables

• Teamwork

• Use tools to stay organized: Rally, VersionOne, JIRA + GreenHopper

• Watch out for:

– Getting stuck in a rut

– Drifting away from original intent

– Overcomplicating the requirements


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#4 Optimizing Requirements GranularityChallenges

• Too detailed:

– Requires too much time

– Restricts implementation creativity

• Too big:

– Lack of clarity

– Can’t fit into a Sprint

– Too big to fathom

– Room for poor interpretation


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#4 Optimizing Requirements Granularity Survival Tips

• Start big, elaborate as needed

• “Just in time” requirements

• Team with your proxy to elaborate requirements

• Focus on…Who, What, Why

• …and How you know when you’re done?


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User Story: Model


As a [user/persona] ,

I want to (goal/action) ,

so that I can (business objective) .

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User Story: Elaboration Example

– Story 1: As an IT person, I would like an automatic execution of configuration upon completion of deployment, so that I can reduce cost of maintenance.

– Story 2: As an IT person, I would like the option of installing both the database server and the web server on one machine in a single step, so that I can save time.


Epic: As an IT person, I would like to reduce deployment time by half, so that I can reduce cost of maintenance.

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Scrum Process


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Prioritization Methods

• MoSCoW - Must, Should, Could, Won’t

• Bubble sort, pair-wise analysis

• Multi-voting

• Buy a feature

• Weighted criteria


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#5 Prioritizing BacklogDangers

• Multiple priority #1 means NO priority #1

• All customer value, all the time leads to brittle software

• Reprioritizing within an iteration creates chaos

• 80% complete on 80% of your Features


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#5 Prioritizing BacklogSurvival Tips

• Define clear business priorities and roadmap themes

• Focus on the top priority in the stack

• Move “throwing features overboard”discussion early in the lifecycle

• Don’t forget defects


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#6 What Will You Deliver & When?Challenges

• No ‘fixed plan’

• Rough sizing

• Unknowns not researched

• Solutions not designed yet

• New priorities might intervene


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#6 What Will You Deliver & When?Survival Tips

• Articulate business value

• Use themes to describe what, rather than how

• Adjust commitments based on your team’s ability to estimate and forecast

• Keep a running tally of: ‘done’, ‘will be in’, ‘might make it’, and ‘don’t count on it’.

• Explain the process – build confidence on maximizing value


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Agile

• A different philosophy

• Continuous planning

• Focus on customer value

• Regular analysis of priorities

• Relies on frequent communication


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Agile Advantages

• Adapts to changing business needs

• Allows flexibility in customer negotiation

• Provides opportunity to get customers deeply involved

• Offers regular visible demonstration of progress


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Questions?

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Hemant Elhence [email protected]

469.322.0349

29

Paul Brownell

Software Process

Product Strategy

Agile Coaching

[email protected]

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Synerzip in a Nut-shell

1. Software development partner for small/mid-sized technology companies

• Exclusive focus on small/mid-sized technology companies• By definition, all Synerzip work is the IP of its respective clients• Deep experience in full SDLC – design, dev, QA/testing, deployment• Technology and industry domain agnostic

2. Dedicated team of high caliber software professionals • Seamlessly extends client’s local team, offering full transparency• NOT just “staff augmentation”, but provide full mgmt support

3. Actually reduces risk of development/delivery• Experienced team - uses appropriate level of engineering discipline• Practices Agile development – responsive, yet disciplined

4. Reduces cost – dual-shore team, 50% cost advantage5. Offers long term flexibility – allows (facilitates) taking

offshore team captive – aka “BOT” option

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Synerzip Clients

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Thanks!

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Hemant Elhence [email protected]

469.322.0349

32

Paul Brownell

Software Process

Product Strategy

Agile Coaching

[email protected]

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