Learn to effectively and efficiently explore, evaluate, and confirm a shared understanding of refined backlog items using Structured conversations with the 7 Product Dimensions so they are ready for implementation.
(Presented at Agile Day New York City September 2018)
One of the most challenging and trouble-prone aspects of Agile product development is discovering the right product requirements to deliver, at the right time, for the right customer.
Many teams rely on user stories to discover and define Agile product requirements. But user stories often lead to confusion, bloated backlogs, ineffective or inconsistent planning, and erratic sprint flow. This thrashing is not how user stories are intended to work!
Join Ellen Gottesdiener in this fast-paced dive into a common-sense, tested approach to user stories. You’ll follow a story as it’s sliced across the seven product dimensions, based on value. You’ll learn how structured conversations enable you to quickly explore, evaluate, and confirm stories. See how making your user stories “ready” is key for incremental delivery of your “done” product.
Writing Good User Stories (Hint: It's not about writing)one80
User stories are typically the foundation of the Product Backlog. However, the original purpose has been lost. This is from a presentation that was given to help remind everyone of what User Stories are, and what they aren't. The purpose of User Stories is to drive conversations, not to hand "requirements" from one group to the next.
This August Scrum Breakfast, we have a new speaker - Mr. Pedro Gonzalez - Scrum Master at TINYpulse.
He will bring us an interesting topic about Agile estimation using story points, giving some tips on why relative estimations are far better than absolutes, why we shouldn't spend too long in details, and other issues he has experienced himself with his team.
User Story Writing & Estimation For Testers By Mahesh VaradharajanAgile Testing Alliance
This session aims to introduce the critical aspects of user story formulation like INVEST principle, requirements hierarchy in Agile - with focus on aspects related to Agile Testing, such that it fits into the overall theme of the event. Through an exercise, with Lego blocks, the session will address the following aspects: Testability of user stories and importance of acceptance criteria. Handling NFRs - either as part of acceptance criteria or a new user stories. DoD and accommodating testing efforts as part of user story estimation; Defects as user stories. Dependency management between user stories via story maps.
Talk including Demo for the learning objectives outlined above
This slide gives an excellent overview of Agile Planning and Estimation.
Will be really helpful, if presented to a Scrum/Agile Team to understand activities related to Release Planning, Sprint Planning and Estimation
One of the most challenging and trouble-prone aspects of Agile product development is discovering the right product requirements to deliver, at the right time, for the right customer.
Many teams rely on user stories to discover and define Agile product requirements. But user stories often lead to confusion, bloated backlogs, ineffective or inconsistent planning, and erratic sprint flow. This thrashing is not how user stories are intended to work!
Join Ellen Gottesdiener in this fast-paced dive into a common-sense, tested approach to user stories. You’ll follow a story as it’s sliced across the seven product dimensions, based on value. You’ll learn how structured conversations enable you to quickly explore, evaluate, and confirm stories. See how making your user stories “ready” is key for incremental delivery of your “done” product.
Writing Good User Stories (Hint: It's not about writing)one80
User stories are typically the foundation of the Product Backlog. However, the original purpose has been lost. This is from a presentation that was given to help remind everyone of what User Stories are, and what they aren't. The purpose of User Stories is to drive conversations, not to hand "requirements" from one group to the next.
This August Scrum Breakfast, we have a new speaker - Mr. Pedro Gonzalez - Scrum Master at TINYpulse.
He will bring us an interesting topic about Agile estimation using story points, giving some tips on why relative estimations are far better than absolutes, why we shouldn't spend too long in details, and other issues he has experienced himself with his team.
User Story Writing & Estimation For Testers By Mahesh VaradharajanAgile Testing Alliance
This session aims to introduce the critical aspects of user story formulation like INVEST principle, requirements hierarchy in Agile - with focus on aspects related to Agile Testing, such that it fits into the overall theme of the event. Through an exercise, with Lego blocks, the session will address the following aspects: Testability of user stories and importance of acceptance criteria. Handling NFRs - either as part of acceptance criteria or a new user stories. DoD and accommodating testing efforts as part of user story estimation; Defects as user stories. Dependency management between user stories via story maps.
Talk including Demo for the learning objectives outlined above
This slide gives an excellent overview of Agile Planning and Estimation.
Will be really helpful, if presented to a Scrum/Agile Team to understand activities related to Release Planning, Sprint Planning and Estimation
Evidenced based management - Presentation at Scrum Australia 24 oct 2018Mia Horrigan
Evidence-Based Management (EBM) is an empirical approach that provides organizations with the ability to measure the value they deliver to customers and the means by which they deliver that value, and to use those measures to guide improvements in both
XBOSoft runs through the Top 10 Agile Metrics revealing the most fundamental data points Agile methodology requires to work effectively, and will put you on the highly targeted path to successful implementation of your Agile processes.
XBOSoft and Go2Group run through the top data points you should be measuring in your Agile Workflow. We’ll show you what to track, when and how often, and most importantly – why. Many believe that metrics are useless, but unless you measure, how can you systematically improve or know how you are doing? And with velocity as an overarching objective in agile, you should be tracking other things so that you know what else you could be impacting by going faster. But, with all the metrics so readily available to us today, how do we filter through to the most meaningful?
The Product Backlog drives the work of Scrum teams, but keeping the backlog fresh and useful is often a continuing challenge. Is your product backlog healthy, and what are some ways to keep it that way that you can use right away?
This slide deck shares my thoughts on the product owner role. It discusses what it means to own a product, and how the product owner role can be scaled.
Lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems, Scrum Theory, Scrum Pillars, Scrum values, Scrum teams, Scrum Master, Scrum Events, the Sprint, Sprint planning, daily Scrum
Backlog refinement is not a Scrum event, but instead is an ongoing activity during the Sprint required to decompose, describe, estimate, and order backlog items in the Product Backlog.
This material is divided into two sections. The first section reviews the basics of backlog refinement, covering various options for conducting the activity. The second section covers tips for maintaining a healthy backlog and potential anti-patterns.
This material was presented at Agile New England in July and August 2022 as "101" introduction and "202" advanced sessions.
Product roadmaps are an important product management tool. But traditionally, they map features onto a timeline that often extends many months into the future. This makes them hard to apply in an agile context where change and uncertainty are present. My talk shows how you can use agile product roadmaps, roadmaps that describe the value the product should create, align the stakeholders and development teams, and unburden the product backlog while avoiding premature commitments and preserving the ability to inspect and adapt.
Scrum Master facilitation techniques ensure that business communities get quick and responsive results. Also, a Scrum Master facilitates against impediments and for product owners’ requirements and support development team efforts.
Introduction:
Struggling to estimate your user stories?
Agenda:
What is agile estimation
Relative versus absolute estimation
Various techniques of estimation
Short introduction to Planning poker technique
Estimate in Story points or ideal days?
When not to re estimate?
Common challenges while estimating
How to slice user stories, using concepts like low/high fidelity solutions, iterative vs incremental delivery, and hunting for small bits of value rather than breaking down work in technical chunks.
One of the most challenging and trouble-prone aspects of Agile product development is discovering the right product requirements to deliver at the right time, for the right customer, and refining them for delivery. This session will share a commonsense, tested approach for defining and refining backlog items so they are “ready” to get to “done.” Explore how refinement is crucial to smooth Scrum flow, shared understanding, and healthy product development team.
(Ellen's slides presented at April 2018 Global Scrum Gathering).
Product Backlog Refinement with Structured Conversations - Big Apple Scrum DayEBG Consulting, Inc.
Slides from Ellen's session at Big Apple Scrum Day, 11 May 2018.
One of the most challenging and trouble-prone aspects of agile product development is discovering the right product requirements to deliver at the right time, for the right customer, and refining them for delivery. This session will share a fast-paced introduction of a common sense, tested approach for defining and refining user stories—or any other method you use to represent backlog items. This enables backlog items to get “ready” to get to “done”.
You will learn how refining backlog items using Structured Conversations with the 7 Product Dimensions enables you to slice backlog items while deeply enhancing teams’ domain knowledge. You identify its usefulness for initial, multi-team and single team product backlog refinement.
We explore how the concept of refinement—making backlog items “ready”—is a corollary to “done”. You’ll participate in a card-based exercise to more deeply understand each of the 7 Product Dimensions. You discover how the dimensions can enlighten and deepen your refinement conversations. Scenes from real Structured Conversations help you visualize making refinement come alive. Join us as you learn to effectively and efficiently explore, evaluate, and confirm a shared understanding of refined backlog items so they are ready for implementation.
Evidenced based management - Presentation at Scrum Australia 24 oct 2018Mia Horrigan
Evidence-Based Management (EBM) is an empirical approach that provides organizations with the ability to measure the value they deliver to customers and the means by which they deliver that value, and to use those measures to guide improvements in both
XBOSoft runs through the Top 10 Agile Metrics revealing the most fundamental data points Agile methodology requires to work effectively, and will put you on the highly targeted path to successful implementation of your Agile processes.
XBOSoft and Go2Group run through the top data points you should be measuring in your Agile Workflow. We’ll show you what to track, when and how often, and most importantly – why. Many believe that metrics are useless, but unless you measure, how can you systematically improve or know how you are doing? And with velocity as an overarching objective in agile, you should be tracking other things so that you know what else you could be impacting by going faster. But, with all the metrics so readily available to us today, how do we filter through to the most meaningful?
The Product Backlog drives the work of Scrum teams, but keeping the backlog fresh and useful is often a continuing challenge. Is your product backlog healthy, and what are some ways to keep it that way that you can use right away?
This slide deck shares my thoughts on the product owner role. It discusses what it means to own a product, and how the product owner role can be scaled.
Lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems, Scrum Theory, Scrum Pillars, Scrum values, Scrum teams, Scrum Master, Scrum Events, the Sprint, Sprint planning, daily Scrum
Backlog refinement is not a Scrum event, but instead is an ongoing activity during the Sprint required to decompose, describe, estimate, and order backlog items in the Product Backlog.
This material is divided into two sections. The first section reviews the basics of backlog refinement, covering various options for conducting the activity. The second section covers tips for maintaining a healthy backlog and potential anti-patterns.
This material was presented at Agile New England in July and August 2022 as "101" introduction and "202" advanced sessions.
Product roadmaps are an important product management tool. But traditionally, they map features onto a timeline that often extends many months into the future. This makes them hard to apply in an agile context where change and uncertainty are present. My talk shows how you can use agile product roadmaps, roadmaps that describe the value the product should create, align the stakeholders and development teams, and unburden the product backlog while avoiding premature commitments and preserving the ability to inspect and adapt.
Scrum Master facilitation techniques ensure that business communities get quick and responsive results. Also, a Scrum Master facilitates against impediments and for product owners’ requirements and support development team efforts.
Introduction:
Struggling to estimate your user stories?
Agenda:
What is agile estimation
Relative versus absolute estimation
Various techniques of estimation
Short introduction to Planning poker technique
Estimate in Story points or ideal days?
When not to re estimate?
Common challenges while estimating
How to slice user stories, using concepts like low/high fidelity solutions, iterative vs incremental delivery, and hunting for small bits of value rather than breaking down work in technical chunks.
One of the most challenging and trouble-prone aspects of Agile product development is discovering the right product requirements to deliver at the right time, for the right customer, and refining them for delivery. This session will share a commonsense, tested approach for defining and refining backlog items so they are “ready” to get to “done.” Explore how refinement is crucial to smooth Scrum flow, shared understanding, and healthy product development team.
(Ellen's slides presented at April 2018 Global Scrum Gathering).
Product Backlog Refinement with Structured Conversations - Big Apple Scrum DayEBG Consulting, Inc.
Slides from Ellen's session at Big Apple Scrum Day, 11 May 2018.
One of the most challenging and trouble-prone aspects of agile product development is discovering the right product requirements to deliver at the right time, for the right customer, and refining them for delivery. This session will share a fast-paced introduction of a common sense, tested approach for defining and refining user stories—or any other method you use to represent backlog items. This enables backlog items to get “ready” to get to “done”.
You will learn how refining backlog items using Structured Conversations with the 7 Product Dimensions enables you to slice backlog items while deeply enhancing teams’ domain knowledge. You identify its usefulness for initial, multi-team and single team product backlog refinement.
We explore how the concept of refinement—making backlog items “ready”—is a corollary to “done”. You’ll participate in a card-based exercise to more deeply understand each of the 7 Product Dimensions. You discover how the dimensions can enlighten and deepen your refinement conversations. Scenes from real Structured Conversations help you visualize making refinement come alive. Join us as you learn to effectively and efficiently explore, evaluate, and confirm a shared understanding of refined backlog items so they are ready for implementation.
Intro to Agile Requirements: User Stories, Backlogs and BeyondEBG Consulting, Inc.
Ellen Gottesdiener's Agile 2015 session (invited session in the Agile Bootcamp track, August 2015).
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One of the most challenging and trouble-prone aspects of product development is discovering the right product requirements to deliver at the right time—and for the right customer. User stories and product backlogs are useful tools, but they aren't the only elements you'll need.
In this fast-paced introductory session, Ellen shares a common-sense approach to agile requirements that will help you reduce risk and deliver value. She surveys powerful ways to have colorful and collaborative requirements conversations. Discover how acceptance tests, prototypes, and models articulate important details. Understand the characteristics of a healthy backlog and review the methods that agile teams use when mining the backlog for business value.
This session debunks commonly held agile requirements myths and misconceptions. These include: “user stories are requirements”; “agile teams don’t do planning”; “requirements documentation goes away in agile”; and “agile teams don’t do analysis”. Come and see how a holistic approach to agile requirements can take you beyond user stories to a place where stakeholders can converse, collaborate, and co-create a shared understanding of ever-evolving product needs.
Session learning objectives include:
* Understand how agile requirements can reduce risk and deliver value, faster
* Learn common myths and misconceptions of agile requirements
* Recognize the utility—and limitations of user stories
* Outline ways agile teams supplement user stories
* Understand characteristics of a healthy backlog
One of the most challenging and trouble-prone aspects of Agile product development is discovering the right product requirements to deliver at the right time for the right customer.
Many teams rely on user stories to discover and define Agile product requirements. In reality, user stories often lead to a confusing array of struggles and puzzles, such as bloated backlogs, ineffective or inconsistent planning, and erratic sprint flow. This thrashing is not how user stories are intended to work
EBG’s Ellen Gottesdiener in this fast-paced introduction of a common sense, tested approach to user stories. With a laser-like focus on delivering value, you follow a story as it’s sliced across the 7 Product Dimensions. You learn how the Structured Conversation framework enables you to quickly explore, evaluate, and confirm stories. See how making your user stories “ready” is the key for incremental delivery of your “Done” product.
(Note: you have the option of viewing the video from the start, or continuing to view the slide deck)
To be product-aligned and customer-focused, everyone in your product development ecosystem needs to agree on the answer to the question, “What is Your Product?”
Many organizations don’t have clarity on what their product or products are. Ambiguity and disagreement on the answer contribute to slow response to changing customer and market needs and less than satisfying product outcomes. It thwarts your efforts to scale agile product development and causes a plethora of organizational and communication woes.
In this keynote, Ellen shares share why this question is so vital to your product success and ways she’s helped organizations co-discover the answer to the question, “What is Your Product?”
To be product-aligned and customer-focused, everyone in your product development ecosystem needs to agree on the answer to the question, “What is Your Product?” Many organizations don’t have clarity on what their product or products are. Ambiguity and disagreement on the answer contribute to slow response to changing customer and market needs and less than satisfying product outcomes. It thwarts your efforts to scale agile product development and causes a plethora of organizational and communication woes.
Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) rightly states that this question—and the imperative to answer it—is one of your most important decisions for successful product development. A clear answer to “What is Your Product” powers all aspects of product development, including product management roles, team organization, and product activities. The implications are vast and deep, especially in large enterprises. Product definition is one of the paramount steps in LeSS adoption. Depending on how a product is defined (how widely) an organization may consider simple LeSS or LeSS Huge. Based on the ladder, team structure and alignment is defined, product owner team is created, etc. Product definition has a significant impact on organisational design.
Based on ongoing work with a variety of organizations, Ellen shares with the NYC Large Scale Scrum (Less) Meetup techniques for enabling product development leaders and communities to define their product using a cohesive set of product definition principles. Ellen explains why this question is so vital to your product success and ways she’s helped organizations co-discover the answer to the question, “What is Your Product?”
Whether your organization’s product or products are a primary source of revenue or are essential for your business operations, you will learn techniques that help instill product-thinking and shared understanding.
"In this discussion, we will cover the basics of experiential marketing campaigns, discuss metrics and ROI, and provide examples. We'll touch on social media campaigns, hackathons and developer events, and both digital and in-person experiences."
Continuously Innovate: GitLab's Approach to PM by GitLab Sr PMProduct School
Main Takeaways:
- Create a foundation to empower teams - Vision, values, strategy, and structure
- Reward outcomes over output - Framework, principles, OKRs, and performance indicators
- Optimize the value exchange - Sensing mechanisms, customer discovery, jobs to be done, iteration, and continuous delivery
Continuously Innovate: GitLab's Approach to PM by GitLab Sr PMProduct School
Main Takeaways:
- Create a foundation to empower teams - Vision, values, strategy, and structure
- Reward outcomes over output - Framework, principles, OKRs, and performance indicators
- Optimize the value exchange - Sensing mechanisms, customer discovery, jobs to be done, iteration, and continuous delivery
Deck used at Keep Austin Agile 2018 with charts from audience pollings.
Enterprises want to deliver more value with higher quality at a faster pace. Many development teams have adopted agile frameworks to improve their ability to deliver software. This has led to a local optimization for the development teams and they have become good at delivering potentially shippable increments of their products, but from there, they typically see organizational constraints in moving it to the customer. The development organization is quickly adding features to the queue waiting to be released, but the operations teams are struggling to support fires in production, maintain stability, and provide the environments and infrastructure needed so development teams can move their new functionality forward. The operation team’s focus on stability usually minimizes the number of changes in production thus creating infrequent, large batches being deployed at a planned date. Can Agile and DevOps bring the development and operations teams together to remove the organizational constraints in moving the software to the customer?
In this session, we’ll talk about the relationship of Agile and DevOps, not as an intersection, but as a progression of capability with development and operation teams working together to remove those constraints. We’ll discuss how using Agile and DevOps practices together, teams can release value faster, with higher quality, and in more stable environments making it safer to deploy.
Transforming Product Development- Transformation Day Philadelphia 2018Amazon Web Services
Many enterprises who are embarking on a journey to the cloud view this effort as an opportunity to transform their operations and development practices. DevOps, agile software development, and design thinking are the popular methodologies that are being used to create a more customer-centric mindset and speed up the delivery of new products & features. This session breaks down the essential components of each methodology and provides best practices on navigating the challenges that are commonly encountered when adopting these methods during a cloud migration.
Éviter les pièges du waterfall dans un contexte de livraison de projet agile:...Agile Montréal
L'agile Testing commence par la mise en place d'outils et événements agiles au sein des "équipes de tests" (scrum, retro, sprints, etc.), mais cela ne suffit pas à faire de l'agile : la composition et l'organisation des équipes est cruciale. Dans un contexte agile, il est impératif que la collaboration entre les testeurs et développeurs soit quasi symbiotique afin d'éviter de retomber dans des pratiques waterfall (en séquence) au sein de l'agile.
Rattanak Biv
In the digital age, it is imperative to leverage the information and intelligence you gain about your customer to drive Exceptional Customer Experience. If you are not disrupting, you are being disrupted. Join us to understand how you can achieve Your Tomorrow Today.
Transforming Product Development - AWS Transformation Day: Santa Clara 2018Amazon Web Services
Many enterprises who are embarking on a journey to the cloud view this effort as an opportunity to transform their operations and development practices. DevOps, agile software development, and design thinking are the popular methodologies that are being used to create a more customer-centric mindset and speed up the delivery of new products & features. This session breaks down the essential components of each methodology and provides best practices on navigating the challenges that are commonly encountered when adopting these methods during a cloud migration.
About the Event:
AWS Transformation Day is designed for enterprise organizations migrating to the cloud to become more responsive, agile and innovative, while staying secure and compliant. Join us for this one-day event and we’ll share our experiences of helping enterprise customers accelerate the pace of migration and adoption of strategic services.
Who should attend?
This event is recommended for IT and business leaders who are looking to create sustainable benefits and a competitive advantage by using the AWS Cloud. CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, CDOs, CFOs, IT leaders and IT professionals, enterprise developers, business decision makers, and finance executives.
How to Run a Cost-Efficient Optimization Program With a Limited BudgetVWO
Choose the Right Technology: If you have a tiny budget, it might be tempting to start using Google Optimize. But your actual costs might be higher: Optimize is not as intuitive and flexible as VWO and requires dev assistance to generate test variations. If you are short of dev resources (which you most likely are), with VWO you can deliver the winning variant to all users instantly.
Work Efficiently: Don’t improvise. Use an organized, lean, agile process of analysis, ideation, design development, QA, launch, and monitoring. Avoid too many loops and design iterations.
Analyze and Prioritize: Support your testing ideas with data. This will help in better prioritization of tests that matter.
Define Ownership: Many companies have launched an optimization program, but after a few months, the program loses its momentum and attention. Investing in a great testing platform, but not making full use of it increases costs. Somebody should “own” and orchestrate the ongoing optimization process and testing efforts.
Want to prove the impact of your ABM initiatives?
In this presentation on account-based attribution basics we’ll show you how Engagio’s Dash Account Based Attribution can be used to measure the ROI of ABM programs at the account level and understand the impact of all key personas involved in an opportunity. In addition, we will outline how to create an account-based funnel and track how accounts are converting throughout their journey.
In this presentation you'll learn how to:
- Make better and faster decisions on marketing spend to drive higher ROI
- Evaluate results using various attribution models such as First Touch, Last Touch, Equal Touch, Position-Based, and custom
- Analyze conversion rates at every stage of the account journey
How to Master Product-Led Growth Strategy in B2B by Gainsight CTOProduct School
Main Takeaways:
- Gain visibility into the product journey
- Tie acquisition and retention KPIs with core metrics
- Design product experiences with an outcome mindset
- Create an iterative process to address usability friction
- Leverage user feedback to accelerate learning
Similar to Product Backlog Refinement with Structured Conversations (20)
What is Your Product? Making Large-Scale Product Development WorkEBG Consulting, Inc.
These are slides from the workshop presented by Ellen Gottesdiener and Andy Repton on August 8, 2019, at Agile Development 2019:
The first step for large enterprises transitioning toward a product-aligned and customer-focused operating model is to get shared agreement on this simple yet challenging question: "What is our product?"
Your answer is one of the most important ones you make. It powers all aspects of product development including product management roles, team organization, and product activities. The implications are vast and deep, especially in a large enterprise.
Based on ongoing work inside a large global technology infrastructure organization, Andy and Ellen provide techniques for enabling product development leaders and communities to define their product using an “outside-in”, customer-focused perspective—and do so with a product management mindset.
You will find the techniques we share useful, even for products that are mid-size or even smaller, because they help instill product-thinking and shared understanding.
Learning Outcomes:
On completion of the workshop, the learner will be able to
• Describe key principles—and their rationale—for defining your product
• Identify practical techniques to use in a product definition facilitated workshop
• Explain the mindsets and points of view that thwart product thinking, and ways to overcome them.
• Implement a collaborative process for helping people reflect, repeal, and reveal what their product is
Agile Product Management: Do the Right Things, Not EverythingEBG Consulting, Inc.
Learn to lighten the load of product management and ownership while strengthening your product ecosystem, making space for the right things amidst the clutter of everything.
Presented at Big Apple Scrum Day, May 2019
For more, read:
https://www.ebgconsulting.com/blog/product-manager-product-owner/
https://www.ebgconsulting.com/blog/product-manager-product-owner-part-2/
https://www.ebgconsulting.com/blog/right-things-not-everything-product-management-ownership/
The first step for large enterprises transitioning toward a product-aligned operating model is to get shared agreement on this simple yet challenging question: "What is our product?"
This session will share techniques we have - and are - using to scale lean/agile product development in a large organization.
Detailed Description:
One of the biggest strengths—and concurrent challenges—for scaling product development with LeSS is defining what the “product” is. LeSS encourages product development teams to take as wide a view as possible and to use a customer-focused definition.
Great.
So, how do you define what your product is? And, how do you define your product in a manner that is collaborative, engaging, and sticky? Based on ongoing work inside a very large global technology infrastructure organization, we share techniques we have and are using to answer this essential question: “What is our Product?”
In this session, Andy and Ellen share techniques for enabling product development leaders and communities to define their product using an “outside-in”, customer-focused perspective - and do so with a product management mindset. They also share “meta” learning points about using these techniques in facilitated sessions in ways that optimize mutual learning.
Presented at the LeSs Conference 2018 by Andy Repton and Ellen Gottesdiener, September 2018
The Agile Fluency™ model describes an agile team’s pathway for achieving a level of fluency that best fits business needs. It is a progression through four zones: Focusing on business value, Delivering on a market cadence, Optimizing to lead the market and Strengthening to make the organizations stronger.
How does this translate to product management?
In this session, you will actively participate in a structured discussion on how product management maps on to this model and what characteristics and skills are key at each step. We’ll explore the challenges PMs/POs face in each zone and how it this impact product decision-making. Join of for a lively and co-active session.
The Contracting Two-Step: Patterns & Actions for Successful CollaborationEBG Consulting, Inc.
~ Presented at Agile Games 2018, Boston, MA. ~
Do your agile team members optimize each other’s skills & capabilities? Share personal development needs? Trust each other? Experience the “contracting two-step”, a metaphor for ways to identify & monitor mutual working agreements. Learn 3 activities to build agreements that make people awesome.
Do your agile team members make optimum use of each other’s skills and capabilities? Do they share their personal development needs? Do they trust each other? If not, consider the “contracting two-step” - a metaphor for simple yet powerful ways to identify and monitor mutual working agreements. Like a dance, contracting partners take mutual responsibility to reach shared goals. While not legally binding, the contract represents public, explicit commitments essential for successful collaborations.
Learn 3 activities to implement the “Contracting Two Step” on your agile team. Leave with activities and worksheets you can use to make people awesome.
Note: you can upload the MatchUp Canvas here: https://www.ebgconsulting.com/MatchUpCanvas(EBG_Consulting)(Gottesdiener)(v1.1).pdf
Agile product managers and product owners are challenged to engage with a wide range of stakeholders. They need a way to collaboratively and transparently discover the value your product can deliver. In this #DiscoveryDojo, you experience engaging stakeholders in Structured Conversations to explore product options using the 7 Product Dimensions to define valuable and actionable backlog items ready for delivery. You experience how these conversations are essential for ongoing backlog refinement. This interactive evening weaves lightning quick presentation moments with hands-on practice in coaching dojo circles.
That Settles It: Techniques for Transparent & Trusted Decision Making EBG Consulting, Inc.
Your team makes countless product and process decisions: vision, product value, requirements to deliver, acceptance criteria, validation tests, platforms and tools, requirements or backlog management, metrics, delivery cadence, risks to proactively mitigate, and more.
Ellen Gottesdiener explores how participatory decision making is essential for fostering collaboration. Learn practical techniques for deciding how to decide. Leave with a toolkit to align your choices with your team values.
Learn:
* How to identify types of product and process decisions made on projects, including their timing and stakeholders
* Recognize decision-making traps, risks, and blunders
* Discover a tried and true—and transparent—decision-making process you can use right away in your work
Many teams struggle with getting user stories small enough and sufficiently understood for planning and delivery. Slicing user stories so they are valuable and actionable is collaborative work - involving the Product Owner, Scrum Master and the team. See how slicing user stories accelerates ongoing backlog refinement, helps sprint and release planning, and increases delivered value.
These are slides from the webinar presented by the co-creator of Scrum, Jeff Sutherland, and the industry's leading expert on story-slicing, Ellen Gottesdiener, on February 24th 2016.
Contact ellen@ebgconsulting.com if you are interested listening to the recording.
One of the most challenging and trouble-prone aspects of agile product development is discovering the right product requirements, to deliver at the right time, for the right customer.
User stories and product backlogs are useful, even essentials tools, but wait – there’s more!
This is a fast-paced introduction of a common sense, tested approach to agile requirements presented by Mary Gorman at Agile 2017. Agile Alliance members can watch the recording at this address:
http://agilealliance.cmail19.com/t/y-l-hriyydk-bdllkqik-iu/
With a laser-like focus on delivering value, you follow a story as it’s sliced across seven product dimensions. You realize the power of sketching analysis models to “see” agile requirements and the strength of using acceptance criteria to ideate and confirm agile requirements. You survey creative ways to engage in collaborative conversations that result in right and ready agile requirements. You appreciate how adaptive planning replaces change management with value management.
See how a holistic, adaptive approach to agile requirements provides a sound foundation for your product backlog through effective stakeholder conversations, collaboration, and co-creation of a shared understanding of ever-evolving product needs.
Success with User Stories: Cut Through User Story Chaos (Toronto Agile Commun...EBG Consulting, Inc.
Presented for the Toronto Agile Community, 13 June 2016:
On the surface, user stories seem pretty straightforward: Just write “As a...I need to...So that...” on an index card. But in reality user stories often lead to a confusing array of struggles and puzzles, such as losing precious engineering time during iterations with analysis; delivering the wrong product slice—or delivering it with errors; delivering late; and more. Surely this chaos is not how user stories are intended to work!
Join Ellen Gottesdiener as she shares practical ways for agile product managers and product owners to mitigate the troubles of user stories while amplifying their advantages. Learn the power of collaboratively uncovering user stories, when and how to engage with engineering and product stakeholders, and guidelines for effective user stories. Leave with a straightforward, holistic approach to stories that will smooth the way for a successful iterative delivery effort.
On the surface, user stories seem pretty straightforward: Just write “As a...I need to...So that...” on an index card. But in reality, user stories often lead to a confusing array of struggles and puzzles, such as losing precious engineering time during iterations with analysis; delivering the wrong product slice—or delivering it with errors; delivering late; and more. Surely this chaos is not how user stories are intended to work!
In this AIPMM webinar, Ellen Gottesdiener shares practical ways for agile product managers and product owners to mitigate the troubles of user stories while amplifying their advantages.
Learn the power of collaboratively uncovering user stories, when and how to engage with engineering and product stakeholders, and guidelines for effective user stories. Leave with a straightforward, holistic approach to stories that will smooth the way for a successful iterative delivery effort.
Agile Open Jam at Building Business Capability Conference 2015EBG Consulting, Inc.
Photos and outcomes from the first Agile Open Jam for the Building Business Capability (BBC) Conference which took place in Las Vegas, Nevada USA, November 2015.
Lead Host and Report by Mary Gorman, EBG Consulting
Read more about the why's and what's of this Agile Open Jam here: https://www.ebgconsulting.com/blog/timely-topics-deep-discussions-agile-open-jam-at-bbc-2015
Nonfunctional requirements-forgotten-negleted-misunderstood-agile devpractice...EBG Consulting, Inc.
Implementing nonfunctional requirements is essential to build the right product. Yet teams often struggle with when and how to discover, specify, and test these requirements. Many teams neglect nonfunctional requirements up front, considering them less important or unrelated to user requirements; other teams specify them incompletely or with untestable and non-measurable attributes. EBG's Paul Reed introduces three types of nonfunctional requirements: interfaces; attributes including performance, usability, security, and robustness; and the environment for the product’s design and implementation. Paul helps you explore ways to visualize interfaces and value their options, examine techniques to specify quality attributes and their acceptance criteria, and consider environmental requirements. Leave with a better understanding of how these dimensions intertwine with functional requirements, and the challenges of incorporating nonfunctional requirements in your product backlog. Ellen shared a fast-paced survey of key practices and an exercise designed to help you discover and define holistic nonfunctional requirements for your agile project.
Product Camp Boston 2015 | 2 May 2015
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On the surface, user stories seem pretty straightforward: Just write “As a...I need to...So that...” on an index card.
But in reality user stories often lead to a confusing array of struggles and puzzles, such as losing precious engineering time during iterations with analysis; delivering the wrong product slice—or delivering it with errors; delivering late; and more. Surely this chaos is not how user stories are intended to work!
Ellen Gottesdiener shares practical ways for product managers and product owners to mitigate the troubles of user stories while amplifying their advantages. Learn the power of collaboratively uncovering user stories, when and how to engage with engineering and product stakeholders, and guidelines for effective user stories. Leave with a straightforward, holistic approach to stories that will smooth the way for a successful iterative delivery effort.
Agile Open Jam at Building Business Capability Conference 2014EBG Consulting, Inc.
Photos and outcomes from the first Agile Open Jam for the Building Business Capability (BBC) Conference which took place in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA, November 2014.
Read more about the why's and what's of this Agile Open Jam here:
http://ebgconsulting.com/blog/agile-soul-mates-jamming-in-florida-by-mary-gorman/
Closing Keynote for IIBA D.C. BusinessAnalysis Development Day (DCBADD)
Agile product discovery is essential for continuous delivery of high-quality solutions. At the same time, discovery is also one of the most challenging aspects of any project. A wide range of stakeholders must collaboratively explore and agree on inventive and valuable product requirements. To do this, many agile teams rely on user stories, and perhaps a few other techniques, such as story maps and personas.
While these are a good start, they are not sufficient for the complex products most teams wrestle with today.
Ellen reaches beyond discovery-as-usual to highlight creative ways to enlighten and energize your agile product discovery.
Photos and outcomes from the first Product Management Agile Open Jam which took place in Zurich, Switzerland at Product Management Festival (PMF) 2014.
Read more about the why's and what's of this Agile Open Jam here:
http://ebgconsulting.com/blog/agile-product-management-open-jam/
[Presented at Product Management Festival 2014 | 17 September 2014 | Zurich, Switzerland]
Problems that result from an unclear, ambiguous, or inaccurate understanding of product scope can permeate and threaten your entire product development effort. This is known as “scope creep”—the unrestrained expansion of requirements as the project proceeds. Scope creep is often cited as a cause of excess costs, late delivery, and dissatisfied customers. Yet discovering requirements is about gaining an ever-growing understanding of them. So isn’t scope creep to be expected? Can—and should—you identify and limit the scope of a product’s requirements?
Join Ellen Gottesdiener as she shares tools and techniques for efficiently and effectively identifying and managing product scope. Learn how you can provide real value to your projects by reducing the risks of scope creep while establishing clear project focus.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
Essentials of Automations: Optimizing FME Workflows with ParametersSafe Software
Are you looking to streamline your workflows and boost your projects’ efficiency? Do you find yourself searching for ways to add flexibility and control over your FME workflows? If so, you’re in the right place.
Join us for an insightful dive into the world of FME parameters, a critical element in optimizing workflow efficiency. This webinar marks the beginning of our three-part “Essentials of Automation” series. This first webinar is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to utilize parameters effectively: enhancing the flexibility, maintainability, and user control of your FME projects.
Here’s what you’ll gain:
- Essentials of FME Parameters: Understand the pivotal role of parameters, including Reader/Writer, Transformer, User, and FME Flow categories. Discover how they are the key to unlocking automation and optimization within your workflows.
- Practical Applications in FME Form: Delve into key user parameter types including choice, connections, and file URLs. Allow users to control how a workflow runs, making your workflows more reusable. Learn to import values and deliver the best user experience for your workflows while enhancing accuracy.
- Optimization Strategies in FME Flow: Explore the creation and strategic deployment of parameters in FME Flow, including the use of deployment and geometry parameters, to maximize workflow efficiency.
- Pro Tips for Success: Gain insights on parameterizing connections and leveraging new features like Conditional Visibility for clarity and simplicity.
We’ll wrap up with a glimpse into future webinars, followed by a Q&A session to address your specific questions surrounding this topic.
Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your FME expertise and drive your projects to new heights of efficiency.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.