software product development basics
TRANSCRIPT
THE DREAMING TREE
Product Releases
Product Principles Manifesto
Product OpportunitiesRoadmap
Product Minor Releases
Mission
Strategy
Objectives
Intermissions
Updates
PRODUCT TOP DOWN FLOW
Product OpportunitiesRoadmap
Product PrinciplesManifesto
Strategic Product PlanningRoadmap
Productdiscovery
PRODUCT MANIFESTO
• Publicly declares the product's principles, beliefs and intentions
• Inspires the final customer, internal team and product’s own functionalities
• Prioritizes the product main elements, thus helping to identify and separate essential from incidental; strategic from tactical
• Clearly states why the product exists
TheProductManifestobySVPG
MANIFESTS
• The Internet is an integral part of modern life–a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment and society as a whole.
• The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.• The Internet should enrich the lives of individual human beings.• Individuals’ security on the Internet is fundamental and cannot be treated as optional.• Individuals must have the ability to shape their own experiences on the Internet.• The effectiveness of the Internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability
(protocols, data formats, content), innovation and decentralized participation worldwide.• Free and open source software promotes the development of the Internet as a public
resource.• Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability, and trust.• Commercial involvement in the development of the Internet brings many benefits; a
balance between commercial goals and public benefit is critical.• Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the Internet is an important goal, worthy of
time, attention and commitment.
• Focus on the user and all else will follow.• It’s best to do one thing really, really well.• Fast is better than slow.• Democracy on the web works.• You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.• You can make money without doing evil.• There’s always more information out there.• The need for information crosses all borders.• You can be serious without a suit.• Great just isn’t good enough.
PRODUCT OPPORTUNITIES
How your products and services will deliver value to the defined customersegment(s) by creating gains and/or relieving their pains
PRODUCT PLANNING
Define the problem you are trying to solve for users, the business opportunities that exist to solve the problems, and the core competencies that will help you make the solution a success
Problem - Solution frame Persona Customer Journey Map
Requirements Gathering
PRODUCT PLANNING – REQUIREMENTS GATHERING
A requirement is simply a short statement of the problem
Suggested format:
[Persona] has [problem] with [frequency]
Product Requirements
Product managers explore the problem, not the solution at this stage. Design team understands the context of the problem.
PRODUCT PLANNING – REQUIREMENTS GATHERING
Benchmark for well-written requirements:
• Is there a clear definition of the user(s)?
• Do I understand their problem / what they are trying to achieve?
• Do I have supporting documentation that provides the context about the persona and their problems so that I clearly understand how to design a solution to their problem?
PRODUCT PLANNING – REQUIREMENTS GATHERING
Requirementsvs.Specifications
Requirement:short statementof theproblem
Specification:howtosolvetheproblem
PRODUCT OPPORTUNITIES – ROADMAP
A plan of action for how a product or solution evolves over time.
It’s a communication tool that helps communicate where you are, where you are heading and how you expect to get there. Roadmaps should detail a high-level product vision and highlight basic prioritization for everyone in your organization, and customers too.
Understand customer needs and pain points
Understand competitive environment – what they do
well, what they don’t
Prioritization
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PRODUCT OPPORTUNITIES – ROADMAP
Best practices:
1. Identify key stakeholders
2. Prepare list of questions, tailor per different group of stakeholders
3. Gather requirements and expectations (vision!)
4. Prepare a matrix of questions and answers
5. Convert answers into key takeaways
6. Cost them and probably split into 3 sets: short (within 6 months), middle (6-12 months), long term 12+ months
7. Score each of the key points
8. Prioritize
PRODUCT PLANNING – REQUIREMENTS GATHERING
If you are using AGILE (you should be): "as a 'role,' I want to 'perform an activity,' so that I can 'achieve a goal’”
+ acceptance criteria*
PRODUCT DISCOVERY – FLOW AND WIREFRAMEFlow charting and wire framing
Start Functional Specifications: “A functional specification describes how a product will work entirely from the user’s perspective. It doesn’t care how the thing is implemented. It talks about features. It specifies screens, menus, dialogs, and so on.”
PRODUCT EXECUTION – FUNCTIONAL SPECS
High fidelity mockups thatincorporate visual design to
implement intended solutions
Sample:http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/WhatTimeIsIt.html
Detailed flowcharts from user's perspective. With features descriptions
along with screens, menus, dialogs, and error specifications.
PRODUCT EXECUTION – TECHNICAL SPECS
Mustread:http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TechnicalSpecification
A technical specification describe the internal implementation of the program.
It talks about software architecture, data structures, relational database models, choice of programming languages and tools, algorithms, etc.
Good technical specification can be as simples as Functional Specifications that follow a particular SoftwareArchitecture that has been chosen to guide the solution.
Generally you have to decide things like: • Communication protocols, availability, SLAs etc.• Management structure, reporting structure, budgets, conflict resolution• Source code control, bug tracking, builds, testing, release policies, etc.• Software methodology, coding standards, languages, OSs, etc.• Frameworks, message passing, logging, which libraries to use, etc.• Resource management, memory management, etc.• System startup, configuration, monitoring, licensing, contingency, backup, etc.• Application architecture• …..
THE PRODUCT MANAGER
AKA: PRODUCT CEO
For product managers to succeed, there needs to be an executive mandate and company-wide understanding that even though everyone gets a voice, product decisions
ultimately reside with product managers.
MakingItRight:ProductManagementForAStartupWorld- http://amzn.to/1TPlDyX