Ready to be a Successful Agile Product Manager?

Anupam Kunduwww.Agiledossier.com / Twitter: mydibba

Short Story of Business And IT

The Product Management Ecosystem

strategy, forecasts, commitments, roadmaps,budgets, staff,

Development Mktg & Sales

Executives

ProductManagement

market information, priorities,requirements, roadmaps, MRDs,

personas, user stories…

software/product

commitments, roadmaps,competitive intelligence

budgets, staff,targets

Field input,Market feedback

Markets & Customers

product

Segmentation, messages, benefits/features, pricing, qualification, demos…

Inspired from Rich Mironov, author of “The Art of Product Management”

The Common Thread: 2011

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-worst-product-flops-of-2011.html

Where are the Good Product People?

Who is a Product Manager?…who investigates, selects and develop one or more products for an organization...

…delivers more value …delivers more value than the competition

…creates a sustainable competitive difference

…generates business …generates business benefit to the organizationWikipedia

Pragmatic Marketing Framework

Talks to Builds the

Listens to the Market

Talks to the Market

Builds the Product

market information, priorities,requirements, roadmaps, wireframes,

alpha launch, beta testing, minimum viable product,

Product Development is a Continuous Process

wireframes,personas, user stories minimum viable product,

build know-how

monitoring and ideas / refinement

five whys, product roadmap, forecast, competitive intelligence,Stakeholder inputs

Real-time monitoring, alerts, funnel analysis, pricing feedback, segmentation , NPS

monitoring and listening

analyze product-market fit

refinement

“We are Agile”

Product Owners …who makes decisions about what the product should do while taking into account what people who make buying decisions actually want... Jeff PattonJeff Patton

• Create and nurture a product vision for the team

• Establish priorities to track business value

• Act as ‘the customer ’ for developer questions

• Work with team to do release planning

• Plan, elaborate and accept user stories and iterations

• Works side by side with engineering

Resetting Expectations

PM Responsibilities TraditionalAgile

Understand Customer Needs Upfront and Discontinuous Constant feedback driven process

Documentation Fully elaborated (MRD, FS) Coarsely defined (Vision, Epics)

Scheduling Six month to Six Year Release Continuous short term release

roadmaps

Prioritization Never or one time in MRD Continuous

Validation NA – “We have QA” Continuous – more frequent than

ever

Change Management Prohibit or delay changes due to cost Inspect and adapt frequently (release

boundaries)

Assess Status Milestone Reviews Docs Inspect code and feature quality

frequently

Release Planning Crystal Ball Transparent , Collaborative and fact

driven

....pause....

Product Owner Challenges

• Spheres of Influence

• Organizational Model & Culture

• Business model validation• Business model validation

• Ignorance & Arrogance

Spheres of Influence

PortfolioDivision level objectives and goals

Prioritized product road map

StrategyProduct roadmap and business strategy

Daily

ReleaseWhat business objectives will each release achieve?

What capabilities will the release offer?

Release plan

Product Business objectives fulfilled by the product

Product Vision

Product life cycle

road mapbusiness strategy

Daily story backlogStory Details

Acceptance Tests

Sprint PlanningWhat stories must be included in the sprint to achieve release objectives?

Iteration Plan

Sprint velocity/capacity

Classic Symptoms

Absentee Product Team

•Product Vision is not well defined or undefined

•Limited interaction with engineering and marketing

•Too many commitments and priorities fighting for attention

•Mismanagement of stakeholder expectations across layers

•Late feedback

Organizational Model & Culture

• Innovation & Risk taking• Stability & Control• Attention to detail• Outcome orientation• People orientation• Team orientation• Aggressiveness

Classic Symptoms

Un-empowered Product Team

•Decisions are overridden by other departments and by other departments and individuals

•Limited or no influence on technology staffing and selection

•This is way things get done •This is way things get done around here

•Late feedback

Business Model Validation MISSING!

Classic Symptoms

Un-trusted Product Team

•Limited engagement of the product folks with strategy, marketing and engineeringmarketing and engineering

•Too many organizational buy-in hurdles

•Continually delayed launch dates

•Extensive rework before launch

•Late feedback

Arrogant PO / Product Team

Classic Symptoms

Single point of failure

•No respect for any metric produced by the teams on groundground

•Public reversal of team decisions

•Treats humans as machines

•Too much hand waving instead of reality check

•Late feedback

The Grand Overlap

Spheres of Influence

No Business Model Validation

Organizational Model

and Culture

Arrogance and Ignorance

and Culture

Culture Shocks

Slow to move or change vs. Change fast

Focus on process vs. Focus on outcome

Product Owners in large corporations vs. startups

Risk averseness vs. Risk adoption

Pass the buck vs. Yes, we can

Low participation vs. High-impact per person

Lack of innovation “soul” vs. Pivoting ideas for new markets

Existing business models vs. Find new and repeatable ones

No mentoring vs. Constant learning

www.SteveBlank.com

Think Differently

Blog.stackoverflow.com

Good to Great – Jim Collins

What are we deeply passionate about?

What drives oureconomic engine?

What can we be the best in the world at?

•Start-ups

•Incubators

Corporate Incubation

•Partner Ventures

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_17630231

It’s Happening !!!

Hire carefully“Culture is incredibly important to us, it took us three months to hire our first employee..”

-- Joe Gebbia (Chief Product Officer, AirBnB.com)

http://mashable.com/2011/07/03/airbnb-job/

Nurture Cross Functional Teams•Harness the intelligence of the whole team

•Align authority with responsibility

http://www.core77.com/reactor/04.06_xbox.asp

responsibility

•Align responsibility with capability

Spawn Entrepreneurial Culture

“Revenue is >$700 million in 2010, no one has a boss, employees negotiate responsibilities with their peers, everyone can spend the company’s money, and each the company’s money, and each individual is responsible for procuring the tools needed to do his or her work…”

First, Let’s Fire All The Managers –Gary Hamel in HBR

http://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers/ar/1

•Continually balance all stakeholder risks against business value

Focus on Business Value

•Execute iteratively and incrementally

http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2012/legalzoom

•Do not start product enhancements without focusing on value

Kill products with high cost to value ratio

•Terminate or Postpone and make the decision process visible

Define MVP

“..MVP is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about validated learning about customers with the least effort”

-- Eric Ries, Founder, Lean Startup

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/reinventing-lincoln-01102012.html

Monitor & Listen (& Change)

Collaborative Roadmaps

Orchestrate over Manage

•Employee turnover reduced to 17% from 54%

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14564917

Engage Stakeholders

Highest PriorityJust PriorityIm

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ive

on th

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akeh

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Highest Priority(involve extensively)

High Priority(involve as needed)

Just Priority(address concerns)

Lowest Priority(keep informed)

Impa

ct

Impa

ct o

f the

initi

ativ

e on

the

stak

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ders

(involve as needed)(keep informed)

Impa

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Critical to Success

Influence of the stakeholders on the success of the initiative

Suggested Product Owner Patterns

• Spheres of influence

• Organizational Model & Culture

• Identify the good-to-great shift

• Incubate the idea(s)

• Hire carefully

• Business model validation

• Ignorance & Arrogance

• Nurture cross functional team

• Spawn entrepreneurial culture

• Make portfolio planning transparent

• Define MVP with business value in mind• Define MVP with business value in mind

• Monitor & Listen

• Engage stakeholders

• Servant leadership

Product Centric Development Teams

“…high -performing class of “product-centric” development teams that characteristically support their company’s value chain, partner with both thei r their company’s value chain, partner with both thei r customers and business stakeholders, and own the business results that their software delivers… “

Forrester Research on Product Centric Development

Lets speak of Trends

People-centred than process centred

Customer focused

Did I mention Agile?

Customer focused Innovation inclined

Move fast Respond to feedback

Self-organizingHigh trust High trust

Quality obsessedCollective Ownership

(sounds like(sounds like(sounds like(sounds like Agile principles)Agile principles)Agile principles)Agile principles)

Questions??

Anupam Kundu, ThoughtWorks www.Linkedin.com/in/Anupamwww.AgileDossier.com

THANK YOU

#mydibba

Tale of Two Product Owners

(http://bit.ly/fQMkXR )Plight of Product Owners

(http://bit.ly/agileproductowners)(http://bit.ly/agileproductowners)2020 Best CIO Acceptance Speech

(http://bit.ly/duxAgy)Product Road-mapping usingAgile Principles

(http://bit.ly/abfM4X)

•Build Cross-functional Teams (http://www.flickr.com/photos/activefree/137467210/)•Spawn Entrepreneurial Culture (http://www.geoffsnyder.com/the-entrepreneurial-rift)•Business Model Image (Jason Furnell, ThoughtWorks) / Alexander Osterwalder: •http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/09/17/solyndra-yes-it-was-possible-to-see-this-failure-coming/•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas

Image Courtesy

•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas•Organizational Culture Symptoms (http://www.blacktomato.co.uk/44035/taiwan-art/)•Focus on Business Value (Life Magazine Photography)•Big Corporations Funding Start-ups (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nichollsphotos/2906834393/)•Arrogant Bastard Ale (http://sandiegopho.com/menus/beers.html)•Organization Culture (http://www.designofsignage.com/application/symbol/hands/largesymbols/number-seven-7.html)•Changing Perspectives (http://www.productmarketing.com/productmarketing/magazine/1/2/07sj.asp)• Think Differently (http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/07/stack-overflow-private-beta-begins/)• Lincoln MKZ spy shot (http://blog.davis-moore.com/2011/09/lincoln-mkz-under-cover/)

• Some imagery and clip-arts borrowed from ThoughtWorks• Some imagery and clip-arts borrowed from ThoughtWorks