Agile Product Management Basics

Transcription

1 Agile Product Management Basics Rich Mironov July 22,

2 About Rich Mironov Veteran product manager/strategist Business models, pricing, roadmaps What do customers want? Agile meets business Executive at four software start-ups Author of The Art of Product Management and Product Bytes blog Chair of product stage at Agile 2009 and 2010 conferences

3 Discussion Topics What is a Product Manager? Product Managers and Product Owners Failure Modes and Organizational Models Conclusions 3

4 Disjoint Communities Product Managers Agile Community Nearly empty, very lonely

5 Agile s Inner Loop (Development)

6 Agile s Strategic Outer Loop (PM) Markets Customers Biz Models Strategy Portfolios Funding Customers Sales Marketing Support Upgrades EOL/EOS

7 What Does a Product Manager Do? For commercial / revenue software PM owns market acceptance of whole products PM targets segments rather than individual customers For strategic internal development PM resolves competing priorities PM drives acceptance and adoption Confidential 7

8 What Does a Product Manager Do? budgets, staff, targets Executives strategy, forecasts, commitments, roadmaps, competitive intelligence market information, priorities, requirements, roadmaps, MRDs, personas, user stories Development Product Management software Mktg & Sales Field input, Market feedback Markets & Customers Segmentation, messages, benefits/features, pricing, qualification, demos

9 Discussion Topics What is a Product Manager? Product Managers and Product Owners Failure Modes and Organizational Models Conclusions 9

10 Product Owner, Product Manager Most agilists think about product owners Formal part of agile team Needs to be physically present Driving user stories and sub-iteration decisions Showcases are primary method of customer input Most product managers are not agilists Majority of work to deliver products (revenue) happens outside Engineering Interacts with markets directly, not filtered through Sales or Marketing Servicing multiple inbound and outbound queues

11 What Does a Product Owner Do? In Scrum, a single person must have final authority representing the customer's interest in backlog prioritization and requirements questions. This person must be available to the team at any time, especially during the sprint planning meeting and the sprint review meeting. Responsible for Defining and prioritizing features Deciding release dates and content Accepting or rejecting work results How developers define product management

12 What s In a Name? No consistency of titles or tasks across organizations May assign some product work to Business analysts Requirements analysts Program managers Should focus on activities and responsibilities, not titles Confidential 12

13 Much More to Do Agile adds 40-60% more product management work Most Product Owners promoted from technical roles with no market training or field experience New POs typically great at sprintlevel issues, very weak at product/market planning

14 Product Owner s Calendar Borrowed from Catherine Connor, Rally

15 Good Product Owners Must Be telepathic Represent true market needs without spending a lot of time in the field Manage complexities of detailed stories as well as complex market tradeoffs Very difficult to do without some product management experience

16 small p product owner Executives priorities, requirements, personas, user stories Development product owner Marketing/Sales Customers software

17 Discussion Topics What is a Product Manager? Product Managers and Product Owners Failure Modes and Organizational Models Conclusions 17

18 Product Manager Failure Modes Solo Product Manager fails the agile team if Part-timer, not fully engaged in team Lack of detail on stories, acceptance tests Stale items in backlog Handwaving and bluster Best of intentions, but pulled in too many directions Build what I meant

19 Product Owner Failure Modes Solo Product Owner fails the market if Weak on actual economic value: pricing, packaging, upgrades, professional service models, discounting, competitive dynamics Disconnected from cross-functional teams that turn software into products (Marketing, Sales, Support ) Trading off company-wide product strategy in favor of product-level features Assuming a few customers at showcase / demo represent the market

20 PO/PM Organizational Map GM - VP PM - VP Eng/CTO Product Management Organization product owners more market-focused more technical

21 Scalable PM/PO Models 1. Small product, co-located team Agile product manager is the product owner 2. Complex product PM covers strategic/outbound, PO for inbound Report up through same PM management chain 3. Distributed teams One or more PMs at main Engineering location Every remote team has a PO (or PM) Frequent, intense collaboration among all PMs/POs 4. Pool of PM/PO talent with strategic leadership Larger departments, enough resources to allocate Pair up, mix and match, share, share, share

22 Discussion Topics What is a Product Manager? Product Managers and Product Owners Failure Modes and Organizational Models Conclusions 22

23 Conclusions Agile makes the product job much bigger But one reason why Agile delivers better software! Incompletely framed as Product Owner PM/PO needs deep and complex market inputs Challenge for PO to cover both roles Think about skills mix and geo-distribution Agile PM

24 Questions? Agile Software Product Development Partner Hemant Elhence,

25 Synerzip in a Nut-shell 1. Software product development partner for small/midsized 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 advantage 5. Offers long term flexibility allows (facilitates) taking offshore team captive aka BOT option Confidential

26 Our Clients Confidential

27 Thank You! Call Us for a Free Consultation! Agile Software Product Development Partner Hemant Elhence, hemant@synerzip.com Rich Mironov, rich@mironov.com