keeping up with agilists
TRANSCRIPT
HELPING PEOPLE CREATE GREAT PRODUCTS
Committing to $$ and Dates in an Agile World
Todd Olson
www.pendo.io
First, a little about me● CEO & Co-Founder, Pendo
Prior● VP Products, Rally Software● CTO / Co-Founder, 6th Sense Analytics● Chief Scientist, Borland● VP Development, TogetherSoft● CTO / Co-Founder Cerebellum Software
Tweet @tolson
Don’t get run over. Change first.
Different Levels of Abstraction
Feature 1 Feature 2 Feature 3 Feature 4
Story A
Story B
Story C
Story D
Story E
Story F
Story G
Story H
Story I
Story J
Initiative
Something a customer cares about.
Something you budget for.
Feature 1 Feature 2 Feature 3 Feature 4
Story A
Story B
Story C
Story D
Story E
Story F
Story G
Story H
Story I
Story J
InitiativePrioritize Within...
must-have
should-have
could-have
PRODUCT
Marketing
Support
Broader Value Streams
Input Analysis Ready Develop Internal-only External
Exit Criteria Preliminary EstimateStories broken downMust-have stories
UI Mock-upsShould-have storiesTech Design
Code completeAutomated Tests passingManual testing
Documentation completeMarketing BlogEmail marketing doneWebsite updated
Customers identifiedBusiness case
Metrics collecting
FEATURE
MarketingSupport
SalesSupport
Product UXArchitecture
Engineering MarketingOps
Even Broader Value Streams
Business Case Analysis Fund Development Collect
Evidence
Exit Criteria Feature Break-downOther dependencies
High-level estimatesResources allocated
Code completeMajor feature shipped
ROITop Customers to use
Usage MetricsBusiness Case check-in
INITIATIVE
What does the Board care about?
&
How much..
Is a feature worth?
User/Business Value + Time Value + Risk Reduction / Opportunity Enablement
Cost
What does this make easier? What sort of leverage can we get?
How timely is this? What’s the cost of missing?
How much do our users/customers value this?
Track a Business Value Point
Investment Allocations
Forecasting Dates in an Agile Way
1 Calculate Throughput across period (week, month, etc)
2 Use throughput to compute how many items on force-ranked backlog you can complete in the chosen period.
Example: Forecasting Dates
XS
S
M
L
2
Point Conversion
4
8
16
Quarterly Throughput
Q1: 40 feature pointsQ2: 38 feature pointsQ3: 42 feature points
FEATURE SIZES
Q3
Q4
Large Feature 1
Small Feature 1
Small Feature 2
Remember that there is prioritized variable
scope within each Feature!!!
Large Feature 2
Options: Forecasting Dates
Loads of options based on process...
Artifact: Feature or Story
# of items or Sum of Estimates
Story Point Estimates or T-Shirt Sizes
INSPECT AND ADAPT
Are our T-shirt sizes good?
XS
S
M
L
2
Point Conversion Actual Cycle Times
1d
4 3d
8 5d
16 20d
2x 4x
Business Value Feedback
ForecastOur biggest customers really need this.
This is going to kill the competition.
This is going to save use millions of $$.
Every user is craving this.
ActualsYet only 2 customers start using it after the release.
The competition copied us in a month.
Cost of training and change negated the savings.
5% of users tried out.
Measure everything● Usage
○ By customer○ By user
● Revenue○ Sales cycle○ Win-loss
● Cost-savings● Customer Satisfaction● Developer Satisfaction● Support Tickets● Forum posts● Help searches
Continue your Agile Journey...
Start small…
Start with Features
HELPING PEOPLE CREATE GREAT PRODUCTS
Questions?
www.pendo.io