The document provides guidance for product managers to be successful in an agile environment. It discusses key aspects of the product manager role including understanding customer needs through constant feedback, prioritizing work through continuous planning, and validating products through frequent testing and monitoring. It also covers challenges product managers may face regarding spheres of influence, organizational culture, and business model validation. The document advocates for adopting agile principles like empowering cross-functional teams, validating minimum viable products, and engaging stakeholders.

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,
commitments, roadmaps,budgets, staff,
Development
Mktg &
Sales
Executives
Product
Management
market information, priorities,
requirements, roadmaps, MRDs,
personas, user stories…
software/
product
commitments, roadmaps,
competitive intelligence
budgets, staff,
targets
Field input,
Market feedback
Markets &
Customers
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…delivers more value
than the competition
…creates a
sustainable
competitive difference
…generates business…generates business
benefit to the
organization
Wikipedia

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

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

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 PattonJeff 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• Business model validation
• Ignorance & Arrogance

13. Spheres of Influence
Portfolio
Division level
objectives and goals
Prioritized product
road map
Strategy
Product roadmap and
business strategy
Daily
Release
What business
objectives will each
release achieve?
What capabilities will
the release offer?
Release plan
Product
Business objectives
fulfilled by the product
Product Vision
Product life cycle
road map
business strategy
Daily
story
backlog
Story Details
Acceptance
Tests
Sprint
Planning
What stories must
be included in the
sprint to achieve
release objectives?
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 andby other departments and
individuals
•Limited or no influence on
technology staffing and
selection
•This is way things get done•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 engineeringmarketing 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
groundground
•Public reversal of team
decisions
•Treats humans as
machines
•Too much hand waving
instead of reality check
•Late feedback

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

22. Culture Shocks

23. Slow to move or change vs. Change fast
Focus on process vs. Focus on outcome
Product Owners in large corporations vs. startups
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 drives our
economic engine?
What can we be the
best in the world at?

26. •Start-ups
•Incubators
Corporate Incubation
•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
http://www.core77.com/reactor/04.06_xbox.asp
responsibility
•Align responsibility with
capability

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

32. •Do not start product
enhancements without
focusing on value
Kill products with high cost to value ratio
•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 aboutvalidated 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
Highest PriorityJust Priority
Impactoftheinitiativeonthestakeholders
Highest Priority
(involve extensively)
High Priority
(involve as needed)
Just Priority
(address concerns)
Lowest Priority
(keep informed)
Impact
Impactoftheinitiativeonthestakeholders
(involve as needed)(keep informed)
Impactoftheinitiativeonthestakeholders
Critical to Success
Influence of the stakeholders on the success of the initiative

38. Suggested Product Owner Patterns
• Spheres of influence
• Organizational Model &
Culture
• Identify the good-to-great shift
• Incubate the idea(s)
• Hire carefully
• Business model validation
• Ignorance & Arrogance
• Nurture cross functional team
• Spawn entrepreneurial culture
• Make portfolio planning transparent
• Define MVP with business value in mind• 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 theirtheir 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. People-centred than process
centred
Customer focused
Did I mention Agile?
Customer focused
Innovation inclined
Move fast
Respond to feedback
Self-organizing
High trustHigh trust
Quality obsessed
Collective Ownership
(sounds like(sounds like(sounds like(sounds like Agile principles)Agile principles)Agile principles)Agile principles)

42. Questions??

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

44. •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
Image Courtesy
•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• Some imagery and clip-arts borrowed from ThoughtWorks