Agile Innovation - Product Management in Turbulent times
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In today’s world we are constantly confronted with the message that the competition is breeding down our necks, that the market and environment are changing and we need to change with them. And most importantly, we are told that we need to listen to our customers to be able to provide the right products. We as a Product Managers need to be able to see beyond the basic product decisions, e.g. do we add feature A or feature B? We need to think beyond the silo of our function.
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Agile Innovation - Product Management in Turbulent times
- 1. Vasco Duarte Agile Coach, duarte_vasco@yahoo.com
- 2. Vasco Duarte @duarte_vasco http://bit.ly/vasco_blog http://bit.ly/vasco_slideshare
- 5. Business at warp speed… How to Cope?
- 6. How to tackle these changes? ACT I – tackling the challenges
- 8. Idea
- 9. Meetings to get idea approved
- 10. Trying to get the project started
- 11. Time is ticking
- 13. Added Value Slow Processes: a (BAD) example One day Brainstorming new product idea 6 months 6 months product trying to get development the project approved Time
- 14. Consequences of slow processes: • Higher costs -> due to the amount of work that is pending while the costs are accruing • Lower quality -> slow processes allow for “dirty” workarounds and hide quality problems (which in turn increase costs due to rework)
- 15. Corollary of fast processes For any given process, if you can reduce the Time it takes to execute it, you will consequently reduce Costs and increase Quality
- 16. CASE I: How to reduce the time it takes to execute a particular process
- 17. Technique 1: Value Stream Mapping Simple example Action Value added (in min) Waste (in min) Partner calls in with an 5 min 0 min order (100 CDs) Order is added to in-house 1 min 10 min system Order is assigned in factory 0 min 5 min Order waits for a minimum 0 min ~2 day (2880 min) batch size (e.g. 1000) Order box is created 1 min x # of CDs = 100 min 5 min x #CDs = 500 min Order mail package created 0 min 10 min Mail Packages are created 5 min 50 min (1 of 10 orders on for all orders average) Mail Packages shipped 5 min 50 min (1 / 10 on average) Mail delay 0 min ~2 day (2880 min) Total 116 min 6385 min
- 19. What happens if you improve the activity that is NOT a bottleneck? Input Result And don’t forget the Little law!
- 22. Best Product Manager = Customer + You
- 24. CASE II: Flexible Requirements Management
- 25. Different content abstractions for different stakeholders Product Portfolio Items Marketing and – Customer marketable Epics Portfolio Longer term Product Owner planning (more + Architect + UX than 1 iteration) Features Where the rubber meets the road – what we do in one User Stories Team + Product iteration Owner
- 26. Different ways to manage a portfolio of Epics/Features Epic Epic Epic Epic Epic Option 1: Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature • Many epics Feature Feature Feature • Shallow implementation Feature Feature Feature • New market / new business Feature Feature Feature Feature innovation • Typical goal: catch up (me too or Epic Epic tick-in-box products for reviews) Feature Feature Feature Feature Option 2: Feature Feature • Few epics Feature Feature • Deep implementation Feature Feature • Technological innovation Feature Feature • Typical goal: Hero products, Feature unique experiences, Niche- Feature focused products Feature
- 28. When I grow up I want to learn…
- 29. Bug evolution in a non-agile project Development phase Desperately testing and fixing phase Number of Bugs Open Closed Submit Timeline Waterfall
- 30. Your Team is the best design team!
- 31. CASE III: The learning process for the whole company
- 32. Step 1: A classic waterfall-like process framework Product Realization General Availability Discontinuation Idea Release Feasibilty Project Development Iterations System Beta RC Launch Market Screening Planning Study Initiation Test Validation Validation Preparation Launch Screening and Initiation Development Validation Release S3 S2 S1 DA Dn ... D2 D1 V3 V2 V1 R2 R1 Product life-cycle and product realization cycle • Learning comes too late • Requires the world to be perfect • Not flexible to changes (especially late changes)
- 33. Step 2: Agile process framework for the whole company • Includes feedback/learning cycles for major company processes • Regular reviews allow us to adapt to change
- 34. Now for the real challenge… ACT III – How to take this into practice?
- 35. Workout OR… Work OUT!
- 36. Flexible Scope techniques Breadth of the portfolio How many experiences do we offer our customers? Epic Epic Epic Epic Epic Is this Epic a “kick-ass” or a “me too” or Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Depth of the portfolio Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature a “check in box”? Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature
- 37. Design a learning process Source: Eric Ries, Lean Startup
- 38. Stop starting, start finishing!
- 39. Here’s a tip you can take to the bank: Hire someone who has done it before.
- 40. Currently an Agile Coach at Avira, Vasco Duarte is an experienced Product and Project Manager. Having worked in the software industry since 1997, Vasco has also been an Agile practitioner since 2004, he is one of the leaders and catalysts of Agile methods and Agile culture adoption at Avira and previously at Nokia and F-Secure. Vasco's contributions to the development of the Software industry and professions can be read at his blog: http://SoftwareDevelopmentToday.blogspot.com Or you can follow Vasco on Twitter: @duarte_vasco Tweet or send me an e-mail: duarte_vasco@yahoo.com
Editor's Notes
- So we are here as Product managers. As people that want to contribute to one of the key aspects in our companies’ internal processes: doing the right things. We can spend a long time talking about how we can do things better, but if we are doing the wrong things that amounts to being better at doing the wrong thing. Doing the wrong thing faster is not how we can be better than the competition.
- In today’s world we are constantly confronted with the message that the competition is breeding down our necks; that the market and environment are changing and we need to change with them. And most importantly, we are told that we need to listen to our customers to be able to provide the right products. You as a Product Manager need to be able to see beyond the basic product decisions, like do we add feature A or feature B. We need to think beyond the silo of our function.You see, the problem is that we need:To know what is next, so that we can be better than the competitionTo understand what processes are slow, so that we can help make them faster and beat the competition to the marketTo test what works so that we find the right product, the right product mix for our customers
- All of these would be possible if we could learn and adapt quickly, including the customer feedback and faster processes. So, the question for us today is: how do we achieve that? How can we, as Product Managers, contribute to the improvement of our organization in a way that allows us to be better by learning and adapting to new circumstances; allows us to be quicker, by removing waste from our processes and do what is needed only.
- Arguably we can be faster, much faster than we are today. When experts review the way we work in an average company they typically find that a large, very large percentage of the work that is done in those companies is just waste. This is work that we do (because we’ve always done those) but does not provide any value to our customers.
- This is a serious issue because everything we do adds cost to our products or services. So, if we do not add value we are basically using money that we can never get back. No added value! Many consultancies quote value-to-waste ratios of about 1-5 %. That means 95% is waste!!!!
- Another important finding is that slow processes are typically co-related with lower quality. This of course makes a lot of sense, because the quicker the process the less errors you can make. If you did the process would be slow, by for example: adding a large validation and verification phase at the end of the project (show picture of a waterfall with the testing/validation appearing at the end).Waste can be removed from any process, but never by looking at that process in isolation.
- Example of the manufacturing process: Value Stream Mapping and how-to
- This is small example of when we looked at the order fulfilling process of a company that sold consumer software (CD in box)And here we are not even looking at the amount of inventory that this company kept to cope with the delay in printing the actual CD’s.
- Let me ask you this question again: What have you done for your customers lately?The waste we identified could not all be removed, but some of it was and we knew what longer-term changes we needed to achieve a much leaner, less wasteful process. This technique called, Value Stream Mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_stream_mapping) can be used on any process, but keep this in mind:It should cover the whole process (from idea to product), like we saw earlier, if it takes 6 months to approve a project, the delays in R&D are the least of your worries.
- If you do not include key steps in the process you run the risk of improving a part of the process that does not help you improve your organization: In a network of activities, improving one of them does not improve the overall performance of the network.As a Product Manager you are in a key role to improve your company’s process. If you keep stuffing R&D with ideas and do not allow time for improvement all that you get is a slower and slower process (Little’s law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little's_law). Improving the speed of your processes is STEP 1 in your quest to improve your competitiveness.
- Waste identification and removal is one of the key tools in the Lean approach to continuous improvement. However being very good at removing waste can only make you faster. You still have to learn how to do the right things and give your customers a compelling experience or service. One of the corner stones of Agile is Feedback, especially customer feedback. Again, here Product Managers are in a key position to help their companies improve.
- The first focus should be to stop working on long term roadmaps that are non-negotiable. Accept it, you cannot know now what will be relevant in 1, 2 or 3 years. Fine, we accept it, but how can we make it work? How can I go to a customer meeting about a future product if I don’t have a roadmap?
- These are important questions, but start by accepting that you just don’t know. When a customer asks you “What will I have for next year’s release/product/service?” you have an excellent opportunity to learn from that customer. Why not ask back “what do you see would be critical for your business in 1 year’s time?”This builds a much needed dialogue with the customer and gives you a key advantage in sales: you just got your customer to partially commit to you by having them state what they want in your product!
- So, the challenge is how do we manage the long-term development of our products without writing in stone the long-term roadmaps? As a Product Manager you need to consider what is important for your business and have an idea of what your business should offer it’s customer, but tying your hands is not the best approach.
- In one of the largest programs we’ve run we used a technique that allowed us to make our requirements flexible even as we gave quite clear direction to our development teams about the longer term (they need this for skill development for example). How did it work?
- Three layers of requirements: Epics -> Features -> Stories with different layers of ownership and details.These levels of abstraction allow the organization entities to focus on managing only the appropriate set of requirements that they need to get their job done.
- The flexible portfolio with the 2 dimensions of flexibilityThe example of the word-editor that can be Notepad or Word
- The advantages of this approach is that it creates a feedback loop into the portfolio and allows us to manage the depth of each Epic to fit the time we have (innovation and competitiveness).This is a technique you can start using tomorrow. Draw the two dimensions for your portfolio. Consider what is relevant for you: few deep features vs. many shallow features.
- The case above is just an example of how you can create a feedback loop that helps your company learn and adapt to the reality as it emerges.But there is more to Agile than Portfolio management. We need to be able to design processes that allow our company to learn and adapt.
- In a waterfall project no one is in control at the end (show bug curve at the end). Much overtime will be needed to get this product out, and that will be on your backs and on the backs of the product development group (be it software or other complex product). This typically leads to a pattern that some have called “Death March” (concentration camp picture), and that’s how it feels. It feels like we are marching to a concentration camp (rant about lives destroyed by this approach).You have a responsibility to avoid this pattern in your place of work, and you can do it. Here’s how.
- In an Agile product development process we involve the product development team from the beginning. This gives us a very quick feedback loop about the product we are designing and concepting. This feedback loop is important in order to1. Create a product that is feasible from the technical point of view2. Allow the R&D teams to contribute their deep-technical knowledge and provide technical innovation to the product that you may not be aware of. Example: take advantage of dual core technology
- In one of the largest programs we’ve run we used a technique that allowed us to make our requirements flexible even as we gave quite clear direction to our development teams about the longer term (they need this for skill development for example). How did it work?
- Here we can see a completely different approach to how to design a company-wide process. The overriding metaphor here is Cycles. Cycles that fulfill different needs in the company but that need to interact for us to be able to take advantage of the value created in each of the cycles. (Explain the function of each of the cycles and how that allows for quick feedback and learning)
- So here’s what you can do tomorrow:Analyze how you are working today and remove the work that is not needed. In GE they used to have workout sessions to do this. See: WORK OUT! You can use VSM as a technique and you can learn more here: (link to VSM example)
- Work with your customers. Use the Flexible Content technique we talked about to both have a dialogue with the customer, but allow flexibility to include the most valuable knowledge that you find later in the project.
- What cycles do you already have in your organization? Evaluate them and then use them to build a feedback chain. So that what you discover in the field is not lost, but goes into the product development process.
- Finally: stop adding new things before you get something out. Don’t fight mathematics, you’ll never win (Little’s Law). Stop starting and Start finishing!
- Finally, I’d like to leave you with a tip that can potentially save you millions and millions of euros.Hire someone with experience in this process!