1. Ready to be a Successful Agile Product Manager?
Anupam Kundu
www.Agiledossier.com / Twitter: mydibba

2. Short Story of Business And IT

3. The Product Management Ecosystem
strategy, forecasts,
budgets, staff, commitments, roadmaps,
targets competitive intelligence
Executives
Field input,
market information, priorities, Market feedback
requirements, roadmaps, MRDs, Product
personas, user stories… Management
Mktg & Markets &
Development
Sales Customers
software/
product
Segmentation, messages,
benefits/features, pricing,
qualification, demos…
Inspired from Rich Mironov, author of “The Art of Product Management”

4. The Common Thread: 2011
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-worst-product-flops-of-2011.html

5. Where are the Good Product People?

6. Who is a Product Manager?
…who investigates,
selects and develop
one or more products
for an organization...
…delivers more value
than the competition
…creates a
sustainable
competitive difference
…generates business
benefit to the
organization
Wikipedia

7. Pragmatic Marketing Framework
Listens to
the Market
Builds the Talks to
Product the
Market

8. Product Development is a Continuous Process
market information, priorities,
requirements, roadmaps, alpha launch, beta
wireframes, testing,
personas, user stories minimum viable product,
build know-how
ideas /
refinement monitoring and
listening
five whys, product Real-time monitoring,
roadmap, forecast, alerts, funnel analysis,
competitive intelligence, analyze product- pricing feedback,
Stakeholder inputs market fit segmentation , NPS

9. “We are Agile”
Product Owners…who
makes decisions about what the
product should do while taking into account what
people who make buying decisions actually want...
Jeff Patton
• Create and nurture a product vision for the team
• Establish priorities to track business value
• Act as ‘the customer’ for developer questions
• Work with team to do release planning
• Plan, elaborate and accept user stories and iterations
• Works side by side with engineering

10. Resetting Expectations
PM Responsibilities Traditional
Agile
Understand Customer Needs Upfront and Discontinuous Constant feedback driven process
Documentation Fully elaborated (MRD, FS) Coarsely defined (Vision, Epics)
Scheduling Six month to Six Year Release Continuous short term release
roadmaps
Prioritization Never or one time in MRD Continuous
Validation NA – “We have QA” Continuous – more frequent than
ever
Change Management Prohibit or delay changes due to cost Inspect and adapt frequently (release
boundaries)
Assess Status Milestone Reviews Docs Inspect code and feature quality
frequently
Release Planning Crystal Ball Transparent , Collaborative and fact
driven

11. ....pause....

12. Product Owner Challenges
• Spheres of Influence
• Organizational Model & Culture
• Business model validation
• Ignorance & Arrogance

13. Spheres of Influence
Portfolio
Division level Strategy
objectives and goals
Product roadmap and
Prioritized product business strategy
road map
Release
What business
Product objectives will each
Business objectives release achieve?
fulfilled by the product
What capabilities will
Product Vision the release offer?
Product life cycle Release plan
Sprint Daily
Planning story
What stories must backlog
be included in the
Story Details
sprint to achieve
release objectives? Acceptance
Tests
Iteration Plan
Sprint
velocity/capacity

14. Classic Symptoms
Absentee Product Team
•Product Vision is not well
defined or undefined
•Limited interaction with
engineering and marketing
•Too many commitments
and priorities fighting for
attention
•Mismanagement of
stakeholder expectations
across layers
•Late feedback

15. Organizational Model & Culture
• Innovation & Risk taking
• Stability & Control
• Attention to detail
• Outcome orientation
• People orientation
• Team orientation
• Aggressiveness

16. Classic Symptoms
Un-empowered Product
Team
•Decisions are overridden
by other departments and
individuals
•Limited or no influence on
technology staffing and
selection
•This is way things get done
around here
•Late feedback

17. Business Model Validation MISSING!

18. Classic Symptoms
Un-trusted Product Team
•Limited engagement of the
product folks with strategy,
marketing and engineering
•Too many organizational
buy-in hurdles
•Continually delayed launch
dates
•Extensive rework before
launch
•Late feedback

19. Arrogant PO / Product Team

20. Classic Symptoms
Single point of failure
•No respect for any metric
produced by the teams on
ground
•Public reversal of team
decisions
•Treats humans as
machines
•Too much hand waving
instead of reality check
•Late feedback

21. The Grand Overlap
No Business
Spheres of
Influence Model
Validation
Organizational
Model
and Culture
Arrogance
and
Ignorance

22. Culture Shocks

23. Product Owners in large corporations vs. startups
Slow to move or change vs. Change fast
Focus on process vs. Focus on outcome
Risk averseness vs. Risk adoption
Pass the buck vs. Yes, we can
Low participation vs. High-impact per person
Lack of innovation “soul” vs. Pivoting ideas for new markets
Existing business models vs. Find new and repeatable ones
No mentoring vs. Constant learning
www.SteveBlank.com

24. Think Differently
Blog.stackoverflow.com

25. Good to Great – Jim Collins
What are we deeply
passionate about?
What can we be the What drives our
best in the world at? economic engine?

26. Corporate Incubation
•Start-ups
•Incubators
•Partner Ventures
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_17630231

27. It’s Happening !!!

28. Hire carefully
“Culture is incredibly
important to us, it took us
three months to hire our
first employee..”
-- Joe Gebbia (Chief Product
Officer, AirBnB.com)
http://mashable.com/2011/07/03/airbnb-job/

29. Nurture Cross Functional Teams
•Harness the intelligence of
the whole team
•Align authority with
responsibility
•Align responsibility with
capability
http://www.core77.com/reactor/04.06_xbox.asp

30. Spawn Entrepreneurial Culture
“Revenue is >$700 million in 2010,
no one has a boss, employees
negotiate responsibilities with
their peers, everyone can spend
the company’s money, and each
individual is responsible for
procuring the tools needed to do
his or her work…”
First, Let’s Fire All The Managers –
Gary Hamel in HBR
http://hbr.org/2011/12/first-lets-fire-all-the-managers/ar/1

31. Focus on Business Value
•Continually balance all
stakeholder risks against
business
value
•Execute iteratively and
incrementally
http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2012/legalzoom

32. Kill products with high cost to value ratio
•Do not start product
enhancements without
focusing on value
•Terminate or Postpone
and make the decision
process visible

33. Define MVP
“..MVP is that version of a
new product which allows
a team to collect the
maximum amount of
validated learning about
customers with the least
effort”
-- Eric Ries, Founder, Lean
Startup
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/reinventing-lincoln-01102012.html

34. Monitor & Listen (& Change)

35. Collaborative Roadmaps

36. Orchestrate over Manage
•Employee turnover
reduced to 17% from 54%
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14564917

37. Engage Stakeholders
Impact of the initiative on the stakeholders
Just Priority Highest Priority
(address concerns) (involve extensively)
Impact
Lowest Priority High Priority
(keep informed) (involve as needed)
Influence of the stakeholders on the success of the initiative
Critical to Success

38. Suggested Product Owner Patterns
• Identify the good-to-great shift
• Spheres of influence
• Incubate the idea(s)
• Organizational Model &
• Culture
Hire carefully
• Business model validation
• Nurture cross functional team
• Ignorance & Arrogance culture
• Spawn entrepreneurial
• Make portfolio planning transparent
• Define MVP with business value in mind
• Monitor & Listen
• Engage stakeholders
• Servant leadership

39. Product Centric Development Teams
“…high-performing class of “product-centric”
development teams that characteristically support
their company’s value chain, partner with both their
customers and business stakeholders, and own the
business results that their software delivers… “
Forrester Research on Product Centric Development

40. Lets speak of Trends

41. Did I mention Agile?
People-centred than process
centred
Customer focused
Innovation inclined
Move fast
Respond to feedback
Self-organizing
High trust
Quality obsessed
Collective Ownership
(sounds like Agile principles)

42. Questions??

43. THANK YOU
Anupam Kundu, ThoughtWorks
www.Linkedin.com/in/Anupam
www.AgileDossier.com
#mydibba
Tale of Two Product Owners
(http://bit.ly/fQMkXR)
Plight of Product Owners
(http://bit.ly/agileproductowners)
2020 Best CIO Acceptance Speech
(http://bit.ly/duxAgy)
Product Road-mapping using
Agile Principles
(http://bit.ly/abfM4X)

44. Image Courtesy
•Build Cross-functional Teams (http://www.flickr.com/photos/activefree/137467210/)
•Spawn Entrepreneurial Culture (http://www.geoffsnyder.com/the-entrepreneurial-rift)
•Business Model Image (Jason Furnell, ThoughtWorks) / Alexander Osterwalder:
•http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/09/17/solyndra-yes-it-was-possible-to-see-this-failure-coming/
•http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Model_Canvas
•Organizational Culture Symptoms (http://www.blacktomato.co.uk/44035/taiwan-art/)
•Focus on Business Value (Life Magazine Photography)
•Big Corporations Funding Start-ups (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nichollsphotos/2906834393/)
•Arrogant Bastard Ale (http://sandiegopho.com/menus/beers.html)
•Organization Culture (http://www.designofsignage.com/application/symbol/hands/largesymbols/number-seven-
7.html)
•Changing Perspectives (http://www.productmarketing.com/productmarketing/magazine/1/2/07sj.asp)
• Think Differently (http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/07/stack-overflow-private-beta-begins/)
• Lincoln MKZ spy shot (http://blog.davis-moore.com/2011/09/lincoln-mkz-under-cover/)
• Some imagery and clip-arts borrowed from ThoughtWorks