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
18. 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…
19. Discussion Topics What is a Product Manager? Product Managers and Product Owners Failure Modes and Organizational Models Conclusions 9
20. 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
21. 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
22. 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
23. 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
25. 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
26. product owner Executives Marketing/Sales Customers “small p” product owner priorities, requirements, personas, user stories… Development software
27. Discussion Topics What is a Product Manager? Product Managers and Product Owners Failure Modes and Organizational Models Conclusions 17
28. 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”
29. 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
30. PO/PM Organizational Map GM - VP PM - VP Eng/CTO Product Management Organization product owners more technical more market-focused
31. 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
32. Discussion Topics What is a Product Manager? Product Managers and Product Owners Failure Modes and Organizational Models Conclusions 22
33. 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
35. 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
