"Lean Startup for Non-startups" by Catherine Connor at Silicon Valley cloud Center

1. Lean Startup for Non-Startups!
#SVPCamp!
©2012 Rally Software Development

2. Your Speaker!
• Catherine Connor
– Rally Software
– Boulder, CO
– catherine@rallydev.com
• Roles
– Product Manager at Rally Software
– Product Owner at Rally Software
– Product Owner at Borland
– Requirements Evangelist at IBM Rational (RequisitePro)
– Sales Engineer at Rational
• Passion
– Providing customers with real solutions
– Helping product managers adopt Agile principles
– “How product management must change to enable the agile enterprise”

3. Experience Report!
• “Lean Startup” technique applied to enter the
Portfolio Management market (Aug’ 10 - Dec’11)
!
!

4. Rally a Startup?!
• Started in 2002
• Privately held
• 298 employees
• 136,000 users
• Distributed offices – US, Europe, Asia
• 58 of the largest technology companies!
• 20 of the largest finance companies!
• 15 of the largest telecom companies!
• Existing Market: Agile Program & Project Management
• New Market: Agile Portfolio Management

5. Customer Development (2004-2009)!
Customer Development is a technique startups use to quickly iterate and
test each part of their business model. !
!
How you execute Customer Development varies, depending on your type
of business.!
!
- Steve Blank!

6. The Four Steps to the Epiphany!
MVP: Put something in users hand and get feedback ASAP!
Pivot: Shift in one important aspect of your business!
©2012 Rally Software Development

7. Lean Startup (2011)!
Customer Development was a way to quickly search
outside the building for a profitable business model
when customer needs are unknown. !
!
An Agile Development model was the right match for
engineering to build a product
when the initial feature set was unknown. !
!
The sum of solving for both unknown customer
needs and unknown features
became the Lean Startup.!

8. Lean Startup Process!

9. Impact on your Bottom Line!

10. Lean Startup @Rally!
©2012 Rally Software Development

11. Disruptive Innovation!
• Apply Agile principles to Portfolio Management
(Aug’ 10 - Dec’11)
!
!

12. Create Minimal Viable Product (MVP)!
• Customer-created JavaFX application presented at LeanSSC’10
!
!

13. Define Innovation Sandbox!
• “Conducting experiments w/o making
massive upfront investment in planning
& design” – Eric Ries
• Dedicated team/budget
– 1 full-time product manager
– 1 full-time contractor

14. Follow Process Diligently!
• “The Four Steps to the Epiphany”
• Agile software development practices
!

15. Identify Earlyvangelists!
• Provide sales with slide deck
– Problem statement
– MVP screenshots!
©2012 Rally Software Development

16. Document Hypotheses!
• The Customer (Personas / Who uses it / who buys it)
• Channel & Pricing (Pricing & Packaging)
• Competition (Competitors & Alternatives)
• The Product
• Demand creation
• Influencers
• Market type (new/existing segment)

17. Deliver Small Batch Sizes!
• Weekly builds delivered to earlyvangelists
!
!

18. Pivot or Persevere? !
• Pivot: Technology Pivot
• Persevere: allocate more development resources

19. By The Numbers!
100 validation interviews
7 earlyvangelists
20 MVP customers
34 MVP releases
16 months

20. Lessons Learned!
©2012 Rally Software Development

21. What Worked!
• Discipline
– “The 4 steps to the Epiphany” cookbook
– Interview script focused on hypotheses validation
• Dedicated resources
– Non-entrepreneurial resources
– No borrowing of existing development resources
• Product-Market fit
– 3 customer testimonials on launch day
• Earlyvangelists
– Few right ones more important than many

22. Ah Ha Moment!
“Dropping releases that require
configuration changes in our
production environment is not an
acceptable way for releases to hit our
enterprise working environment. ”

23. Earlyvangelist Detector!
• Low availability
• Assigned to participate by manager
• Focus on usability and performance instead of suitability
• Need constant hand-holding to use MVP
NOT AN
EARLYVANGELIST

24. What We Could Have Done Better!
1. Discard non-earlyvangelists quicker
2. Clearer internal communication
3. Include UX person in interviews
4. Earlyvangelists’ expectations at launch
5. Less documentation for MVP

25. The Power of Lean Startup!
©2012 Rally Software Development

26. Resources!
• The Four Steps to the Epiphany - Steveblank.com
– Teaching Customer Development and the Lean Startup –
Topological Homeomorphism!
• Theleanstartup.com – Eric Ries
– The Lean Startup: Interview with Eric Ries
• Escape Velocity – Geoffrey Moore
– Audio Podcast: Reach your escape velocity – Standford University eCorner
• Rally’s experience – Agile Blog
– Blog: The Lean Startup & Customer Development – How It’s Moving Through Rally!
– Blog: Give people the gift of meaningful work, while investing in your company’s future!
– Videos: http://www.rallydev.com/toolkits/agile-portfolio-management-toolkit

27. Thank You!
©2012 Rally Software Development