Jule Owen, SVP, Product, Unruly - Extreme Product Management - A True Story

1. A News Corp Company
Extreme Product: A true story

2. A News Corp Company
12.5 million working days lost to work-related
stress, depression or anxiety
UK Government Health and Safety Executive numbers, 2016-17

3. A News Corp Company
Unruly’s founders are the basis of its culture

4. A News Corp Company
Organisational health = Business advantage

5. A News Corp Company

6. A News Corp Company
“I’m not a great programmer;
I’m just a good programmer
with great habits.”
–Kent Beck

7. A News Corp Company
Face to face communication

8. A News Corp Company
Stories

9. A News Corp Company
Collaboration

10. A News Corp Company
Retrospectives

11. A News Corp Company
Pair programming

12. A News Corp Company
Continuous testing & deployment
Sustainable Development
Avoid burnout

13. A News Corp Company
A learning organisation

14. A News Corp Company
Gold cards (20% time)

15. A News Corp Company
Unruly becomes part of News Corporation
2015

16. A News Corp Company

17. A News Corp Company
Face to face, informality,
Pair programming
Scaling
very fast

18. A News Corp Company
Adapting to fast
changing requirements
Cost of context
switching

19. A News Corp Company
Lean
& Agile
Corporate budgeting
& investment

20. A News Corp Company
Short term planning
(and thinking)
Vision and
strategy

21. A News Corp Company
Startup business
& MVPs
Often building things that already
have a proven business model

22. A News Corp Company
• Product Manager
• Planning games
• Cost and estimation
• Business value????
Extreme product management?

23. A News Corp Company
SSP
RAD
DE
DSP
SHIFT
Ad Spaces
Boomerang

24. A News Corp Company
Choosing what to do (and not do) is one of the hardest and most important things
Planning process:
Boomerang Quarterly Goal
2 week iterations 3 month iterations
Tactical Strategic
Temporary teams All of Pro Dev
Anyone can submit a story Exec proposes
Supported by business cases and aligned to 2020 vision

25. A News Corp Company
What Next?

26. A News Corp Company
Pro Dev
planning kick off
QS Squad
set up
Early stage
research high
level commercial
& technical
assessment
Short list of stories
based on high
level commercial/
technical
assessment
Business
case prep &
final signoff
Exec prioritises
Comms to @all
Hand over
from
prioritization
team to
execution

27. A News Corp Company
In summary
• Changing prioritisation and planning processes have helped Unruly
manage through significant change
• We have placed a premium on the value of culture
• Ambiguities in XP (and Agile) is a challenge and an opportunity for
product people