Living and learning about life, environmentalism, technology, travel, food & the arts… during the climate crisis. Believer in an ecological renaissance. Articles pre-december 2019 before my ecological awakening. To be updated.
Les “best practices” de Product Owner comment est-ce que vous pouvez les utiliser pour améliorer votre propre vie ou vie profesionnelle ? Les découvre dans mon atélier j’ai fait hier à Agile Paris by Night de Agile Tour
Chapeau à Agile Paris by Night … toujours un événement formidable et inspirant. Merci encore. C’était mon honneur d’anime mon atelier avec autres orateurs supers. Grand merci aux participants pour votre énergie, votre participation et vos éxchanges.
Yesterday I reawoke the workshop “Everyone is a Product Manager (Yes, even you!)” but did it completely in French. Just in case it may be of use to you here are the slides in English from when I did it at LeanKanban and AgileNord in 2017.
It goes over the best practices of Product Management PLUS how that can even be applied to your personal life. I crave your feedback!
We discuss often about what agile methodology IS, but today I want to address one of the most frequent NONagile practices done by who think that they have mastered the methodology. While what I will introduce is nothing new, it always helps to have several voices in the choir to ensure everyone hears.
More like Carnival singer… as a silly hat helps carry your voice. (Source Pixabay)
How the dialog goes …
« We develop in two week iterations. »
Automatically agile?
FAUX – FALSE
« We develop and deliver to production in two week iterations. »
WARMER – Tell me more
« We develop and deliver to production, in two week iterations, customer value (or our best guess) »
AGILE
« We develop and deliver to production, in two week iterations, customer value experiments that have results we can measure. »
Because it means nothing without a meme. For your sharing pleasure to shame the others. Errr… I mean share the good word.
While shorter development cycles are a good first step, do not stop there:
Your end game is to get the product out as soon as possible with the best value and quality, so that it is used… or better… yet bought.
If you build a product in an iterative manner and it does not get used by any sort of customer until 6 months or a year later, it is still waterfall.
Agile is challenging yourselves as a team (all voices included) to find the smallest iteration or story “slice” that can be actually released (even in beta) for the best beginning value. It may not be perfect, but it is a start that will already get you feedback! Feedback is the most precious-ness… my precious…
And as indicated above, the best of all, is when you measure the results to see you were successful. But that can be a whole article for another time.
I think of Agile delivery planning as a campsite rather than a house.
A house is meant for sleeping and eating. First the foundation is poured, then the structure is built, the insulation is added, etc. This is all well and fine if no one is going to live in the house until the end.
But here is a test… if someone wanted to move in half-way through the construction, can they sleep and eat in my house?
Not if they like a soggy head and soggier toast when it rains!
Same goes for your product. Always ask, “If after this sprint if the project is immediately canceled, would what we have still be useful?” Trust me as someone who has had projects cancelled mid-sprint that you will be happy you built it in this way.
A campsite though is a better example of how you should construct your product: a campsite is meant for sleeping and eating as well but built quickly and modularly, delivering value with each part. First a tent (already able to sleep in, and your food will stay dry), a firepit for cooking, then some stools as our legs get tired while heating s’mores, etc…
Also, good technique is when looking at your first planned iterations, to step back and ask yourself :
Does this serve the base customer value that I want to test?
Can I do this more simply?
You can test this further by actually removing a part of the product and then looking back at question #1.
Something to think about: For team leaders, project managers, etc, how do you splice your projects in general? Is it a roadmap with no deliverables for three months, six months, or a year even? Why not apply the same technique?
Good luck, Happy Campers! Avoid those waterfalls; there are bears there!
Valently striding into battle and certain death! Source: Pixabay
Lately I have been working with a company giving UX advice and revising wireframes for their new site. It has been a fun and rewarding experience!
Friday it struck me once again, with a sappy sort of realization how creative the user experience design process is. This should be evident but by the word, “design” but often the process is not thought of as so.
Product Development as well demands such creativity (and really any of the web professions, when you need to problem solve and develop).
I like to think of the product development & user experience process like sculpting.
You happen upon a big lump of concept in which you can see a glimmer of an fully formed profitable product inside.
You chip at it and make something that you think is pretty darn good looking, using inspiration from experience, other artists out there (past and present), books about sculpting and what you know about your future viewers.
By TochiPhotos
But then you step back or have an art critic look at it… And its a hunk of crap.
Ew
And with the feedback you roll up your sleeves and jump back in with your chisel.
And repeat this… for who knows long until FINALLY you step back, look at it from all angles, have that critic come back over to gander, show your mum and some random passerby… and it is right! Or right enough to test further. 🙂
Funny things is it often looks MUCH different from what you originally invisioned… but if done right…
