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Demystifying Agile

Product Management

Rich Mironov CEO, Mironov Consulting

January 22, 2014

About Rich Mironov

• Veteran product manager/exec/strategist

– Business models, pricing, agile

– Organizing product organizations

– “What do customers want?”

• 6 startups, including as CEO/founder

• “The Art of Product Management”

• Founded Product Camp, chaired first agile product manager/owner tracks

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Agenda

1. What is a product manager? An

agile product owner?

2. Finding and growing product skills

3. Product management/ownership in

distributed models

3

Demystifying Agile

Product Managemen

t

www.synerzip.com

The Set-up

• “Product manager” is a job title

– Org charts, HR category, not necessarily agile

– Reports to Marketing, Engineering or executives

• “Product owner” is an agile team role

– Part of self-organizing team

– Reports to Engineering or Program Office

• Work has to get done, regardless of title

– Sprint-level stories, backlogs, priorities, acceptance…

– Engagement with users, buyers and corporate priorities

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What Does A Product Manager Do?

• For commercial / revenue software…

– Drives delivery and market acceptance of whole

products

– Targets market segments, not individual customers

– “Are we building the right thing?”

• For strategic internal development…

– Drives acceptance and adoption

– Resolves inevitable competing priorities

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market information, priorities,

requirements, roadmaps, epics, user stories, backlogs,

personas, MRDs…

product bits

strategy, forecasts, commitments, roadmaps, competitive intelligence

budgets, staff,

targets

Field input,

Market feedback

Segmentation, messages, benefits/features, pricing,

qualification, demos…

Markets & Customers Development

Marketing& Sales

Executives

Product

Management

What Does A Product Manager Do?

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Feeding The Agile Beast

Steam engine “fireman” needs to keep shoveling coal, otherwise the train will stop

IMO, agile needs 40-60% more product management than waterfall

7 www.synerzip.com

What Does a Product Owner Do

• “…represents the customer’s interest in backlog prioritization and requirements questions... available to the team at any time.”

• Feeds the hungry agile beast

• Provides intense sprint-level focus: stories, backlog, prioritization, acceptance

• Wins adulation of development teams

• Does portion of product management that developers see

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backlog, priorities, epics, user stories,

personas, demo feedback

product bits

Markets & Customers Development

Marketing& Sales

Executives

Product

Owner

„small p‟ Product Owner

showcase customers

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Product Owner‟s Calendar

From Catherine Connor, Rally

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Product Manager Has More Levers

• Engineering output – Product features

– Order of delivery

• Whole product/business model – Pricing

– Competitive positioning

– Distribution

– Services

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Product manager

Product owner

After: Greg Cohen

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Why is Prioritization Hard?

• Customer/field demands always far outstrip resources

– Likely discard 80%+ of enhancement requests

• Decisions are semi-quantitative

– Huge error bars on revenue impact, market reactions, development estimates, support costs

– Short-term vs. long-term

• Incremental features grow into crufty products

– Deal-driven vs. strategic “curating”

• People and organizations matters

Confidential 12 www.synerzip.com

Product Manager Failure Modes

Product Manager fails agile team when…

• Part-timer, not engaged with team

• Lack of detail on stories

• Stale backlog

• Handwaving and bluster

• Best of intentions, but pulled in

too many directions

• “Build what I meant”

13 www.synerzip.com

Product Owner Failure Modes

Product Owner fails the market when…

• Weak on market realities: pricing,

packaging, selling cycle, upgrades,

discounting, service models,

competitive dynamics

• Disconnected from Marketing,

Sales, Support/Services

• Trading off company strategy for product features

• Confusing showcase customers with broader

market

14 www.synerzip.com

Market Failure Modes

• Delivering (big) products that don’t sell

• Commitment to outdated plans

• Urgency to start coding

• Assuming static markets

Independent of titles, how

do we reduce risk of

catastrophic failures?

15 www.synerzip.com

Agenda

1. What is a product manager? An

agile product owner?

2. Finding and growing product

skills

3. Product management/ownership in

distributed models

16

Demystifying Agile

Product Managemen

t

www.synerzip.com

What PM Hiring Managers Want

Analyzed 41 recent technology product

manager job postings

• 76% want previous PM experience

(average of 3.3 years)

• 93% want excellent verbal and written

communication skills

• 93% want a BS (68% prefer CS/EE)

• 32% want MBAs

• 88% want experience in that

company’s market segment

17 www.synerzip.com

How Development Managers Hire

• Look first for SMEs

• Huge premium on technical chops, story writing

• Rarely consider market-side experience

– Believe in rational/unemotional/technical customers

• Undervalue organizational “blocking” skills

• Can be disastrous for revenue products

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Look for Balanced Set of Talents

• Product experience, ideally

in multiple markets

• Technical enough to

succeed with your Dev team

• Demonstrated empathy for

customers

• Can deal with different

styles/personality types

Confidential 19 www.synerzip.com

Agenda

1. What is a product manager? An

agile product owner?

2. Finding and growing product skills

3. Product management/ownership

in distributed models

20

Demystifying Agile

Product Managemen

t

www.synerzip.com

Practical Reality

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• Most development teams are

distributed

– Often in multiple locations

– Far from Marketing and Sales

• Agile development, waterfall validation

– Focus on timely delivery

• Need winning products, not just code

– Keep our product decisions agile

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Distinct Product Managers/Owners?

One way to split up work

• Product Manager

– Program-level responsibility for features, stories, teams

– Feature-level backlog, review, team-level escalations

– Intensive daily collaboration with product owners, customer prospects

– 40% scrum-of-scrums, 40% customers, 20% overhead

• Product Owner

– 100% dedicated to 1 or 2 scrum teams

– Manage/groom team backlog, write/accept all stories, sprint planning and reviews

– Solid line to product management

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Minimal PM/PO “Organization”

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VP or Founders

more technical more market-focused

Heroic Single

Product Manager/Owner

“management”

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Dysfunctional PO/PM Organization

24

VP Eng

Product Owners

VP Marketing

Product

Managers

more technical more market-focused

“management”

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PM/PO Product Peers

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PM Director/ Product Strategist

GM / VP Eng / VP Products / CPO

more technical more market-focused

“management”

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PM/PO: Market Mentoring

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GM / VP Eng / VP Products / CPO

more technical more market-focused

“management”

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Delegating Stories and Acceptance?

• Varies with team, project, technical depth

• Which stories (design choices) are customer-

visible?

– Example: extra focus on UI, configuration options?

– Example: performance goal (epic) versus specific

performance improvements (stories)

• Plan ahead, negotiate a working agreement

– What kinds of story writing, to whom?

– Acceptance of which stories, to whom?

– Check in frequently: where are the bottlenecks?

27 www.synerzip.com

Take-Aways

• Product management is a superset of

product ownership

• Successful products demand real market

validation, hard-nosed economic thinking

and uncomfortable trade-offs

• Product managers need to be

near customers and markets;

product owners need to

be near development

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Questions?

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Hemant Elhence

hemant@synerzip.com

469.322.0349

Synerzip in a Nutshell

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

• Exclusive focus on small/mid-sized technology companies, typically venture-backed companies in growth phase

• By definition, all Synerzip work is the IP of its respective clients

• Deep experience in full SDLC – design, dev, QA/testing, deployment

2. Dedicated & stable team of high caliber software professionals for each client

• Seamlessly extends client’s local team, offering full transparency

• Stable teams with very low turn-over • 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 advantage

5. Offers long term flexibility – allows (facilitates) taking offshore team captive – aka “BOT” option

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Confidential

Our Clients

Call Us for a Free Consultation!

Hemant Elhence

hemant@synerzip.com

469.322.0349

Thanks!

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