The document discusses how the role of product managers changes and stays the same with Agile development methods. It summarizes the traditional responsibilities of product managers in driving strategy, requirements, and market acceptance of products. It then provides an overview of Agile principles and processes. While Agile focuses development teams on frequent delivery, the document argues product managers still bridge engineering, markets, and strategy through responsibilities outside of development like pricing and packaging. Effective product managers in Agile environments are technically strong but also market-focused.

1. How Agile Changes (and Doesn’t Change) What Product Managers Do Rich MironovNov 18, 2010

2. About Rich Mironov Veteran product strategist/PM consultant Interim executive Business models, pricing,Agile meets business Currently CEO of stealth start-up Repeat offender at product mgmt/marketing Tandem, Sybase, five B2B start-ups “The Art of Product Management” Chaired Agile ‘09/’10 PM/PO tracks Founded ProductCamp

3. Agenda 3 What does a product manager do? Agile overview Agile and product managers/owners Conclusions

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

5. What Does a Product Manager Do? For commercial / revenue software… PM drives delivery and market acceptance of whole products PM targets market segments, not individual customers For strategic internal development… PM resolves competing priorities PM drives acceptance and adoption

6. 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…

7. Product Mgmt Planning Horizons many years Exec Strategy years Portfolio many mons PM Product 2-9 mon Release Dev Team Sprint 2 wk Daily

8. Pragmatic Marketing® Framework Dir, Prod Strategy Prod Mktg Mgr Tech Prod Mgr BusinessPlan MarketingPlan Positioning Pricing Market Problems Customer Acquisition BuyingProcess Market Definition Buy, Build or Partner Win/Loss Analysis Customer Retention Buyer Personas Distribution Strategy Product Profitability Distinctive Competence Program Effectiveness UserPersonas Product Portfolio Business Market Programs Planning Strategy Support Readiness Business Market Programs Planning Strategy Support Readiness Innovation Competitive Landscape LaunchPlan Require- ments Product Roadmap Presentations & Demos SalesProcess Technology Assessment Thought Leadership UseScenarios “Special”Calls Collateral Lead Generation Status Dashboard EventSupport SalesTools Referrals & References ChannelSupport Channel Training © 1993-2009 Pragmatic Marketing, Inc. All rights reserved

9. Nature of PM Role No natural sequence for PM Must work all aspects in parallel Entire planning onion Intensely interrupt-driven Bottoms-up shapes top-down, top-down shapes bottoms-up Product Management must provide strategy, judgment and integration as well as execution

10. Agenda 10 What does a product manager do? Agile overview Agile and product managers/owners Conclusions

11. What is Agile? Umbrella term for various software project management and engineering practices Incremental, iterative and collaborative More frequent delivery of smaller increments Building quality in, not adding it at the end Goal of potentially shippable at every iteration Active user involvement (or customer proxy) Self-managing teams Incremental process improvements

12. Discussions about Agile… Part philosophy and religion Part process, tools, techniques, methods Part organizational design

13. Why Not Waterfall? Requirements and estimates Design Coding and unit test System integration & QA Operation and maintenance Waterfall projects rarely deliver according to plan

14. Agile (Scrum) Model Plan out 1-4 weeks work Meet daily Create product needs Review product Strategic planning Improve process After: Gabrielle Benefield

15. Fixed Vs. Variable Waterfall Agile Fixed Requirements Time Resources Value Driven Plan Driven Estimated Time Resources Features The Plan creates cost/schedule estimates Release themes and feature intent drive estimates

16. Agile’s Inner Loop (Development) After: Mike Cohn

18. Customers

19. Biz Models

20. Strategy

21. Portfolios

22. Funding

23. Customers

24. Sales

25. Marketing

26. Support

27. Upgrades

29. 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

30. Product Owner’s Calendar Borrowed from Catherine Connor, Rally

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

32. 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”

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

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

35. Agenda 25 What does a product manager do? Agile overview Agile and product managers/owners Conclusions

36. Conclusions Product management bridgesengineering, markets and strategic planning Agile’sfocus is on improving developmentprocesses Inherent agile bias toward known customers Agile success requires strongly technical but market-oriented product managers Agile PM

37. Contact Information +1-650-315-7394 rich@mironov.com www.mironov.com/articles/ feeds.feedburner.com/RichMironovProductBytes @RichMironov www.linkedin.com/in/richmironov