Curating a Product Backlog - Sriram Narayan, ThoughtWorks

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For any product that has users and a future, inputs for product direction come in from different quarters. - Product marketing and sales guys - Senior management - Product manager's vision - Existing customers - Prospective customers - End user input via support channel - End user feedback via social media - Competition - Industry trends - Product development team These inputs may be at the granularity of feature requests or more strategic. If these inputs are collected and curated carefully, it can be an invaluable basis for prioritizing the backlog. But this calls for a fair amount of effort and typically, the product owner or product manager don't have the time to do justice to this job. As a result, we end up with a uncurated backlog that is scattered in people's minds, emails, ticket management system, project management tool, presentations etc. This leads to somewhat unscientific prioritization. There is a role of backlog curator lurking in here. Need not a full time role but something that a product analyst (BA) can do for say one-third of the time. In the talk/workshop we'll explore some techniques for effective curation and retrieval that enable a more data-informed approach to backlog prioritization.

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Workshop  on  Cura-ng  a  Product  Backlog  

Sriram  Narayan  BAconf  Aug-­‐2013  

Quick  audience  poll  

Timely  

     Early  entrant  Stable  product  business  –  many  customers  Challenges  to  sales  growth  Increasing  compe--on  

Product  backlog    =    story  (requirements)  backlog  

What  are  sources  of  valid  input?  

Sources  Marke-ng  

Sales  Product  Vision  

Execs  Prospects  Customers  End  users  

Compe--on  Industry  trends  Prod  dev  team  Other  internal  

users  

Channels  Email  

Mee-ng  Social  Media  Blog  post  Support  

Call  center  

VoC  interviews  Surveys  

How  do  we  keep  track  of  all  this  informa-on?  

What  fields  to  track?  

To  what  end?  

What  insights  do  we  want?  

•  Top  missing  features/capabili-es  leading  to  opportunity  loss  

•  Our  weaknesses  compared  to  compe--on  •  Our  strengths  compared  to  compe--on  •  Overlap  of  vision  with  demand  •  Top  missing  features/capabili-es  leading  to  customer  aVri-on  

•  Most  used  features  •  Most  un-­‐used  features  •  Most  liked  features  •  Most  requested  S/M/L  features,  by  user  segment  

•  Top  usability  complaints  •  Most  under-­‐documented  features  

What  fields  to  track?  

Date  

Name  

Org  Name  

Source  Type  

Channel  

Area  

Insight  

Form  teams  of  4-­‐6  45  seconds  per  card  Ques-ons  welcome  

Tips  

•  Cura-on,  not  priori-za-on  •  Don’t  think  about  accep-ng/rejec-ng  the  input  

•  Rota-ng  scribe  •  Use  the  bigger  s-cky  to  copy  the  descrip-on  •  Curate  on  the  fly  •  First  one  -­‐  sample  

14-­‐Mar-­‐13   Who:  ITC   Via:  f2f  Allow  me  to    add  resources  (rooms,  projectors)  to  meeEngs  created  by  others  

1  of  20  

Date   Who:  Customer/other  

Via:  email/social  media/f2f…  

DescripEon  of  input  

01-­‐Jan-­‐12   Who:  Pd  Mgr   Via:  Vision  2  way  sync  with  mobile  

2  of  20  

01-­‐Feb-­‐13   Who:  Pd  team   Via:    Show  room  in  weekly  summary  

3  of  20  

19-­‐Oct-­‐12   Who:  Flipkart   Via:  SF-­‐lost  prospect  fdbk  

Migrate  entries  from  Google  calendar  

4  of  20  

10-­‐May-­‐13   Who:  Tata  Motors   Via:  SF-­‐lost  prospect  fdbk  

Ability  to  toggle-­‐view  all  events  that  I  haven’t  responded  to  

5  of  20  

21-­‐Jan-­‐13   Who:  Google   Via:  CompeEEon  Integrate  todo  list  with  calendar  

6  of  20  

22-­‐Jun-­‐13   Who:  ITC   Via:  Support  Support  offline  mode  so  that  I  can  see  details  en-­‐route  to  room  without  wifi  

7  of  20  

12-­‐Dec-­‐12   Who:  Sr.Mgmt   Via:  f2f  Quickly  see  if  I  am  required  or  opEonal  

8  of  20  

06-­‐Apr-­‐13   Who:  Rita  (free  user)  

Via:  twi]er  

I  wish  Emely  would  also  let  me  manage  my  todo  list  

9  of  20  

10-­‐Oct-­‐12   Who:  Pd  Mgr   Via:  Vision  Provide  stats  of  Eme  spent  in  meeEngs.  Break  down  by  f2f,  web  conf,  tele  con  

10  of  20  

23-­‐Jan-­‐13   Who:  Redbus   Via:  SF-­‐lost  prospect  fdbk  

Create  meeEngs  from  mobile  

11  of  20  

22-­‐Sep-­‐11   Who:  Google   Via:  CompeEEon  Agenda  view  

12  of  20  

12-­‐Feb-­‐13   Who:  Amit  (free  user)  

Via:  blog  post  

Too  many  steps  to  create  an  event  and  send  invite  

13  of  20  

27-­‐Jan-­‐13   Who:  Axis  Bank   Via:  Sales  current  prospect  

Migrate  entries  from  Lotus  Notes  

14  of  20  

16-­‐Aug-­‐13   Who:  Rang  De   Via:  f2f  Show  venue  in  weekly  summary  

15  of  20  

13-­‐Mar-­‐13   Who:  Goonj   Via:  Sales  Ability  to  mark  a  meeEng  as  f2f,  web  conf  or  tele  conf  

16  of  20  

14-­‐Dec-­‐12   Who:Industry   Via:HBR  blog  Shorter  meeEngs.  Default  to  half  hour  

17  of  20  

18-­‐Mar-­‐13   Who:Tyto  soeware  

Via:  Support  

Please  add  support  for  changing  Emezone.  (resolved  by  showing  them  how)  

18  of  20  

15-­‐Nov-­‐12   Who:MarkeEng   Via:  (Opt-­‐out)  Ability  to  auto-­‐schedule  promoEonal  events  into  the  calendars  of  free  users  

19  of  20  

09-­‐Jun-­‐13   Who:Zinnov  ConsulEng  

Via:Support  

Why  isn’t  it  possible  to  change  from  24  hr  clock.  (resolved  by  showing  them  how)  

20  of  20  

Time  to  test  our  cura-on  

Select,  organize,  and  look  ager  the  items  in  (a  collec-on  or  exhibi-on).  

Good  curator  types  Type   CharacterisEcs   VocaEons  

INFJ   Observer,  organized,  values  solitude  

Art/museum  curator,    archivist,  librarian,  art  historian  

INTP   observer,  relies  more  on  mind  

Researcher,  historian  

INTJ   observer,    orderly,  clean,  organized  

Researcher,  curator,  librarian  

Source:  similarminds.com  

What  next?  

•  A  curated  backlog  can  be  used  as  a  sound  basis  for  – Valida-ng,  tweaking  the  roadmap  – Deciding  the  next  set  of  features  to  work  on  – Data-­‐informed  priori-za-on  

Thank  you  @sriramnarayan  

 comments,  ques-ons,  feedback?