Agile Product Management Basics

Agile Product Management Basics
Rich Mironov
July 22, 2010
www.synerzip.com

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

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

Disjoint Communities
Product Managers
Agile Community
Nearly empty, very lonely

Agile’s Inner Loop (Development)

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

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

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

Discussion Topics
Conclusions
9

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

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

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

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 sprint-level issues, very weak at product/market planning

Product Owner’s Calendar
Borrowed from Catherine Connor, Rally

Good Product Owners Must…
Be telepathic
Represent true market needswithout spending a lot of time“in the field”
Manage complexities of detailedstories as well as complex market tradeoffs
Very difficult to do without some product management experience

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

Discussion Topics
Conclusions
17

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”

Product Owner Failure Modes
Solo Product Owner fails the market if…
Weak on actualeconomic value: pricing, packaging, upgrades, professional servicemodels, 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

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

Scalable PM/PO Models
Small product, co-located team
Agile product manager is the product owner
Complex product
PM covers strategic/outbound, PO for inbound
Report up through same PM management chain
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
Pool of PM/PO talent with strategic leadership
Larger departments, enough resources to allocate
Pair up, mix and match, share, share, share

Discussion Topics
Conclusions
22

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
www.synerzip.com
Hemant Elhence, hemant@synerzip.com
469.322.0349

Synerzip in a Nut-shell
Software product development partner for small/mid-sized 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
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
Actually reduces risk of development/delivery
Experienced team - uses appropriate level of engineering discipline
Practices Agile development – responsive, yet disciplined
Reduces cost – dual-shore team, 50% cost advantage
Offers long term flexibility – allows (facilitates) taking offshore team captive – aka “BOT” option
Confidential

Confidential
Our Clients

27
Thank You!
Call Us for a Free Consultation!
Agile Software Product Development Partner
www.synerzip.com
Hemant Elhence, hemant@synerzip.com
469.322.0349
Rich Mironov, www.Mironov.com
rich@mironov.com
650.315.7394
TW: @RichMironov

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Agile Product Management Basics

by Rich Mironov on Jul 25, 2010

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