AGILE PRODUCT
MANAGEMENT

Hi, I am Kimberely Thomas
Managing Director
interactiv4
New York, NY
@magentogirl

This is a talk about creating
GREAT PRODUCTS WITH AGILE
DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES

but first,
A BRIEF INTRO TO SCRUM

SCRUM TEAM PLAYERS
Product Owner
-visionary
-strategist
-drives product
Scrum Master
-facilitator
-manages the information exchange
Team

CORE PRINCIPLES OF SCRUM
—Backlog of User Stories
—Sprints
-Sprint Planning Meetings
-Daily Scrum Meetings
-Retrospective

USER STORIES
Action Stories for the software user,
that describes the type of user, what
they want and why. A user story helps
to create a simplified description of a
requirement.

TOOLS
-Jira
-Assembla

REPORTING
VELOCITY REPORT
> know how much your team completed
in hours or story points for a sprint
> story points vs hours

REPORTING
BURNDOWN REPORT
> How much has burned down per sprint
and how much is left to complete the
product

BEING AGILE

ag·ile
ˈajəl/
adjective
1. able to move quickly and easily.
"Ruth was as agile as a monkey”

DO WHAT WORKS FOR
YOUR TEAM

AGILE TEAM
Product Manager (Product Owner)
Tech Lead (Scrum Master)
Team

Agile Methodologies
Backlog
-Pruned Tickets with Estimates
Sprints
-Tickets to be worked on
Sprint Planning Meeting
Daily(?) Stand up

TICKETS VS USER STORIES
because
‘A user can view the home page as designed’
makes less sense then
‘Style the Home Page’

ANATOMY OF A TICKET
-Summary*
-Description*
-Attachments*
-Estimate*
*REQUIRED FIELDS TO START A TICKET

CREATE ALL TICKETS FOR A RELEASE
AT THE
BEGINNING
IDEALLY WITH ESTIMATES

TICKET WORKFLOW

SPRINT PLANNING MEETING
> Monday AM
> Prior Sprint is Closed
> New Sprint is created
> The TEAM picks tickets to be worked on
> Tickets must be estimated
> Pick tickets with a total time = your velocity

CASE STUDY: LACES REQUIREMENTS
Have a Modern Look and Feel
-Home Page
-Category Page
-Product Page
-Checkout
Have a Shoe Customizer
-Allow user to select color of shoe, trim and laces
-Allow user to upload logo of shoe

CASE STUDY: LACES TICKETS
Epic: Theming
-Style Home Page
-Style Category Page
-Style Product Page
-Style Checkout
Epic: Backend
-Create Shoe Customizer

LACES SCRUM BOARD

WHAT DO I WITH TICKETS FROM THE PREVIOUS
SPRINT THAT ARE NOT FINISHED?
Only 1 Sprint at a Time
Tickets from previous Sprint are moved to new Sprint

WHAT DO I DO IF NEW PRIORITIES COME UP DURING A
SPRINT?
like Magento security patches $&@#%&!
ADD THE TICKET
Don’t stress over not finishing all tickets in a sprint if
new things come up

WHAT DO I DO IF RUN OUT OF TICKETS DURING A
SPRINT?
GO TO THE PUB?
SELECT MORE TICKETS!
Jira will complain but just ignore that

A FEW WORDS ABOUT ESTIMATES

ESTIMATING
-Estimates are educated guesses
-You have to start in the beginning even with little
information
-Keep refining as you learn more
-Learn from your reports of estimated vs actual time
how you are doing

JIRA TIPS
1. Create your Workflow
2. Create your Board
3. use Versions and Epics
4. log worked time
5. use the reports

Epics

EPIC
BURNDOWN

VERSIONS

VERSION
REPORT

AGILE GIT
1. TICKET IS STARTED AND STATUS SET TO IN
PROGRESS
2. GIT BRANCH IS CREATED FOR TICKET BASED
OF MASTER
Example: 10-Shoe-Customizer

AGILE GIT
3. TASK IS COMPLETED AND COMMITTED,
PUSHED IN FEATURE BRANCH
4. PULL REQUEST IS CREATED TO DEVELOP
5. TECH LEAD REVIEWS CODE AND APPROVES
PULL REQUEST
or it is reopened

AGILE GIT
6. CODE IS DEPLOYED TO DEV SERVER AND
TICKET STATUS IS SET TO TEST
7. IF TESTS PASSED TICKET IS SET TO READY
or it is reopened

AGILE GIT
8. RELEASE DEPLOYMENT MERGES
ALL READY TICKETS TO MASTER
9. TAG IS CREATED IN GIT AND CODE
IS DEPLOYED TO PRODUCTION

WHAT NOT TO
DO WHEN BEING
AGILE?

Don’t Make 1 sprint and reuse it

Don’t skip estimating your tickets

Don’t use Jira for just ticket management

Don’t skip making tickets
(never use a spreadsheet!)

BENEFITS OF
AGILE?

Can always see the sprint status at a glance

Can easily determine when the product will be completed
using the reports

HAPPY DEVELOPERS

SPECIAL THANKS TO MY TEAM AT INTERACTIV4 NYC
FOR THEIR PARTICIPATION IN DEVELOPING OUR AGILE PROCESS