Karoliina Luoto, Codento, 26 August in Agile Lean 2015, Sofia, Bulgaria: Why do customers usually struggle in agile, and what could a development team or a Scrum Master do to help them manage?

1. Karoliina Luoto · Alpha 1, 12-12:30 Wed 26 Aug 2015
Why customers suck
and what can be done about it?
Ale 2015, Paradise Center, Sofia

2. Karoliina Luoto + Codento
Consultant for
Agile coaching and consulting
Focus: customer work
Before: product owner, collaboration
strategist, communications specialist
Change agent’s right hand
Works in actual software development too

3. Let me tell you
A story
Karoliina.luoto@codento.com · @totoroki · +358 40 765 8504

4. Photo: Sam Howzit, Flickr
Picture: Malabooboo, Flickr
Monsters Inc.
Wanted to develop an e-child-
scarer
Picture: © Disney Pixar

5. The product
manager team had
heard about this
Scrum thing and
wanted to try it out
Picture: © Disney Pixar

6. Photo: Sam Howzit, Flickr
Picture: Malabooboo, Flickr
A company called Monsters Inc.
Wanted to develop an e-child-
scarer
Picture: © Disney Pixar
The project board
Was a bit suspicious about agile
Picture: © Disney Pixar

7. Photo: Sam Howzit, Flickr
Picture: Malabooboo, Flickr
A company called Monsters Inc.
Wanted to develop an e-child-
scarer
Picture: © Disney Pixar
But the e-scarer had potential
- So they found the money

8. The brand new
Product Owner
was super happy about
how Scrum seemed
”We don’t need to plan,
we’ll just find a team, start
developing and
see what happens!”
Picture: © Disney Pixar

9. Picture: © Disney Pixar
The Development Team
Was talented and visionated

10. Picture: © Disney Pixar
The Product Manager Team
Worked their arses off

11. Picture: © Disney Pixar
Writing and prioritizing
Backlog items

12. And the team really got
Sprint goals completed

13. And the team really got
Sprint goals completed
Often Sprint Reviews
Were revelations for POs
Picture: © Disney Pixar

14. So this is the kind of product
We are building! Seems
Excellent!
Picture: © Disney Pixar

15. POs got loads of user feedback
And tried to answer it all
Picture: © Disney Pixar

16. Time flied, project board tired
When do we get the results?
Picture: © Disney Pixar

17. Picture: © Disney Pixar

18. The Scrum Team did great
But nobody seemed to understan
Picture: © Disney Pixar

19. Finally the PO burnouted
It seemed impossible to succee
Picture: © Disney Pixar

20. The project was shut down:
”Agile is not for us”
Picture: © Disney Pixar

21. Monsters returned to
The old manual scaring syste
Picture: © Disney Pixar

22. *The dev team w
What had gone
The team and others were
baffled
What had gone wrong?
The team was baffled
What had gone wrong?

23. So how could the
Development Team have
helped?

24. Agile Client Hand-Holder Test
for Scrum Masters and Dev Teams
1. Have you had a liftoff (kickoff) for both product vision and methods?
Test by: Karoliina Luoto Further reading: Agile Liftoff / Diana
Portland
2. Have you asked for project board vision on the value of different features?
Vision document? Lean canvas?
3. Do you collect user feedback on the value of features?
6. Have you told the product owner what you feel is worth focusing on?
7. Are you focusing on 20 % solutions that can fulfill 80 % of the need?
8. Are you telling the PO about differently-sized implementation options for
items?
4. Are you tracking business value over sprints?
5. Are you asking the PO to test – early and often?
9. Is your Product Owner attending retrospectives?

25. Tools for
Helping the client
Picture: © Disney Pixar

26. Loan poker cards
To the project board
Photo: karla_k., FlickrPhoto: Karoliina Luoto
Value poker for epics in
project board
Needs somebody to facilitate
Aligns Product Owner’s vision
with the project board’s
Picture: © Disney Pixar

27. Value feedback
From Users
Billing or ”How much is this
feature worth to you?”
”Will this feature keep you
from going to competitor?”
Get the feedback to the
board
Picture: © Disney Pixar

28. Value burnup chart
to keep track
Photo: karla_k., FlickrPhoto: Karoliina Luoto
Based on project board’s
value poker or real value
feedback from users
Ensures that effort is
used on valuable stuff
Picture: © Disney Pixar

29. Alternative plannig
poker
In planning meetings
Photo: karla_k., FlickrPhoto: Karoliina Luoto
Play for lightest possible
implementation
…and the for the perfect one
To help PO see the
scale
Picture: © Disney Pixar

30. Default solutions
For piloting
Modules put up with
default settings, code from
old projects…
Get the PO to pilot the
workflows and get feedback
After that iterations add
value
Picture: © Disney Pixar

31. Open reviews
For product
understanding
Photo: Karoliina Luoto
Also project board to
reviewsHave the end-user feedback
at hand for everyone
For shared vision and effort
discussion
Picture: © Disney Pixar

32. Usually it’s value management
And you can help!
Picture: © Disney P

33. The End 
www.codento.com
www.agileownership.com
Karoliina Luoto · @totoroki · +358 40 765 8504