Product managers and product owners can engage and motivate their teams to delight customers - or they can distract and dishearten their teams. Ron Lichty has been a product manager, a CTO, and a VP leading both development organizations and product teams. As a development leader, he regards product managers who "get it" as key partners. Here are 16 ways to engage and motivate product teams - to ensure that together that you delight customers! BIo: Ron Lichty has, for 30-plus years, championed delighting customers. He believes that strong product/engineering collaboration is essential to achieving that goal. Ron co-authored the Addison-Wesley book Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams (http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net) and annually coauthors the Study of Product Team Performance (http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html). Ron spent seven years as a programmer, two years as a product manager, and 25 years managing product and development organizations at all levels - to VP of engineering, VP of product and CTO - at companies ranging in size from tiny startups to Charles Schwab,Stanford, and Apple. He now consults across that realm, taking on fractional interim VP Engineering and acting CTO roles, training teams in agile, training managers in managing software people and teams, and coaching development teams and executives in making software development hum. (http://www.ronlichty.com) Ron has long been a popular speaker at product, development and agile meetups and conferences. Ron@RonLichty.com

1. Product Owners: How to get your
development team to love you
Product Owners: How to get your
development team to love you
@ProductSchool //Productschool

2. Product Owners: How to Get Your
Development Team to Love You
Ron Lichty, principal, Ron Lichty Consulting
author, Managing the Unmanageable
www.RonLichty.com www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net 2

3. * Addison Wesley published October 2012
*
3

4. Ron Lichty,
Managing Development & Product Teams
SOFTWEST
4

5. 5
Transforming Chaos to Clarity

6. 6
Untangling Knots in
Development and Product Teams

7. Training Teams: Scrum and Agile
1-4 weeks
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 7

8. …and training Managers,
Product Managers & Execs
* Addison Wesley published October 2012 8

9. Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
Brooks’s Law: Adding manpower to a late
software project makes it later.
– Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
* 300 in the book
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 9

10. Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*
* 300 in the book
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 10

11. In the beginning, everyone will talk about scope,
and budget, and schedule, but in the end,
nobody really cares about any of those things.
The only thing they care about is this:
People will love your software, or they won’t.
So that’s the only criterion to which you
should truly manage.
—Joseph Kleinschmidt, CTO, now a CEO
* 300 in the book
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 11
Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*

12. How to Get
Your Development Team
to Love You
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 12

13. What Motivates Programmers
• Making a difference…
From Managing the Unmanageable:, by Mickey W. Mantle and Ron Lichty, based on Frederick Herzberg’s seminal work
in the 1950s identifying and differentiating motivators and de-motivators. 13

14. Share the Big Picture
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 14

15. Share the Big Picture
• Connect the dots
– The big picture
– What each team member is contributing
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 15

16. Partner
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 16

17. 17
Partner
ScrumTeam.jpg (from Exploring Scrum- the Fundamentals, by Dan Rawsthorne & Doug Shimp)
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You

18. Prioritize
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 18

19. Prioritize
• Developers want to know they’re working on the stuff
customers will value most!
• There is no such thing as “2 top priorities”!
• Get good at the mantra, “I’ll put it in the backlog”
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 19

20. Prioritize
• Developers want to know they’re working on the stuff
customers will value most!
• There is no such thing as “2 top priorities”!
• Get good at the mantra, “I’ll put it in the backlog”
• “If everything is a priority, nothing is a
priority.”
— Sheila Brady, Apple project management guru
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 20

21. Prioritize
21Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You

22. Prioritize
• “If you don’t have time to calculate
value, we don’t have time to calculate
cost.”
--Jim Highsmith, agile coach and guru
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 22

23. Prioritize
• Be the source of clarity!
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 23

24. Share the “What” not the “How”
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 24

25. Share the “What” not the “How”
• It’s subtle
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 25

26. Share the “What” not the “How”
As a <some kind of user>
I want to <do something>
in order to <accomplish some goal>
Who
What
Why
Never “How”
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 26

27. Block the Noise
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 27

28. Block the Noise
--John Evans photo
Be a damper to the noise. --Joe Kleinschmidt, CTO
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 28

29. Make Trade-Offs
• Scope and Schedule
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 29

30. Make Trade-Offs
• Honor velocity
• Focus on fomenting amazing teamwork
– on supporting the team becoming high
performance
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 30

31. Be Available
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 31

32. Be Available
• Be there with clarity
– with the priorities / with the backlog
– with the stories
– with the acceptance tests
– with the detail
– with the clarity / the disambiguation
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 32

33. Let Developers Focus
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 33

34. Let Developers Focus
• Avoid interruptions
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 34

35. Let Developers Focus
• Avoid interruptions
• Prevent mid-sprint tangents
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 35

36. Let Developers Focus
• Avoid interruptions
• Prevent mid-sprint tangents
• Multitasking?
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 36

37. Have the Data
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 37

38. Have the Data
• You need to know about this classic book:
Software by Numbers
Mark Denne & Jane Cleland-Huang
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 38

39. Have the Data
• You need to know about this classic book:
Software by Numbers
Mark Denne & Jane Cleland-Huang
– the source of
• Minimum Marketable Features (MMFs)
• Incremental Funding Methodology (IFM)
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 39

40. Engage Users
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 40

41. Engage Users
• Open a connection to users for developers
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 41

42. Engage Users
• Open a connection to users for developers
• Remember: It’s about delighting users!
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 42

43. Listen
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 43

44. Listen
• Support a culture of communication
– at every level
– with everyone
• up, down, within and across
• “We have two ears and one mouth. Use them
in this ratio.”
— Kimberly Wiefling
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 44

45. Incorporate Engineering’s Stories
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 45

46. Incorporate Engineering’s Stories
• opportunities in the code
• technical risk
• reducing technical debt
• refactoring
• automation
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 46

47. Incorporate Engineering’s Stories
• Webinar w Greg Cohen:
http://www.slideshare.net/RonLichty/prioritizing
-the-product-backlog-aipmm-webinar
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 47

48. Incorporate Engineering’s Stories
• Webinar w Greg Cohen:
http://www.slideshare.net/RonLichty/prioritizing
-the-product-backlog-aipmm-webinar
If you’re just using your engineers to code,
you’re losing half their value.
--Marty Cagan
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 48

49. Be Tech Savvy
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 49

50. Theme Your Sprints
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 50

51. Support Agile Values

52. Annual Study
of Product Team Performance
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 52
http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html

53. Support Agile Values
Methodology You Use
Methodology You Associate with Increase Profits
Agile
Blended (Some Waterfall
and Some Agile)
Lean Waterfall
Agile 73.9% 13.0% 9.8% 0.0%
Blended (Some Waterfall
and Some Agile)
31.8% 46.2% 10.6% 6.1%
Lean 14.3% 0.0% 42.9% 14.3%
Waterfall 15.8% 50.0% 18.4% 13.2%
Don't Know 5.3% 42.1% 26.3% 5.3%
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 53

54. It’s the Values
• Support Agile Values
The Agile Manifesto
– We value:
• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan
-- http://agilemanifesto.org/
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 54

55. Agile Values Inspire Great Teams
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 55

56. It’s the Values
• That self-organizing team thing
By Michaelblinkpipe (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAn_Abcam_stand_up_meeting_using_BlinkPipe_video_conferencing..png

57. Agile Values Inspire Great Teams
• Build projects around motivated
individuals
• Trust… to get the job done
• Face-to-face conversation
• Self-organizing teams
• The team reflects, …tunes, …adjusts
-- http://agilemanifesto.org/
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 57

58. Support Agile Values
• Create an Agile Culture

59. Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 59

60. Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 60

61. Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement disrupts Agile
• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams
• Micromanagement prevents Learning
• Micromanaged teams become order-takers
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 61

62. Projects Not Suitable for Agile?
• Micromanagement disrupts Agile
• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams
• Micromanagement prevents Learning
• Micromanaged teams become order-takers
• Agile calls for everyone on the team to step up
• Micromanagement causes everyone to step back
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 62

63. Partner
Ron Lichty: How to Get Your Development Team to Love You 63
Photo by Esti Alvarez, Some rights reserved, http://www.Flickr.com/photos/esti/4638056301/

64. Ron Lichty Consulting
• Interim & acting CTO/VP Eng roles / making development hum
– http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com
• The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
• The study:
The Study of Product Team Performance
– http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
• Training: Agile for Teams
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
64

65. Ron Lichty Consulting
• Interim & acting CTO/VP Eng roles / making development hum
– http://ronlichty.com, Ron@RonLichty.com
• The book:
Managing the Unmanageable:
Rules, Tools & Insights for Managing Software People & Teams
– http://ManagingTheUnmanageable.net
• The study:
The Study of Product Team Performance
– http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html
• Training: Agile for Teams
The Agile Manager
Managing Software People and Teams
65

66. Upcoming Courses
San Francisco
Weeknights: September 6th
Weekends: September 10th
Apply At
www.productschool.com
www.productschool.com

67. www.productschool.com
Upcoming Workshops
Rsvp On Eventbrite
August 24: PM Life at an Early Stage Startup
August 31: Product Management Course - Info
Session
Sept 7: Why are you Road-mapping?
Sept 14: Getting to a Product Market Fit Quickly
Sept 21: Product Management Happy Hour