Focus on the Customer

AGILE IS ABOUT FOCUSING ON THE CUSTOMER

AND COLLABORATION…

So why do so many teams and companies still fail to do it?

Copyright© Richard Dolman ThePragmaticAgilist.com for PMI Chicagoland Professional Development Day November 1, 2013

About Me

•  Agile evangelist, pragmatist, coach, trainer, practitioner, explorer and learner

•  Senior Enterprise Agile Coach and Trainer with agile42, LLC. (www.agile42.com)

•  10+ years practicing Agile and Lean

•  Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM I), ICAgile Certified Professional (ICP) and PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)

My professional passion is helping companies solve critical business and technology challenges, and empowering and enabling collaborative,

high-performing teams.

I enjoy coaching teams, executives and managers to explore the possibilities of Agile and to seek creativity, innovation and continuous

improvement through Servant Leadership.

2 Copyright© Richard Dolman | ThePragmaticAgilist.com

Courtesy of VersionOne


SATISFY THE CUSTOMER!

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous

delivery of valuable software.


Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

Customer's Competitive Advantage!


WHO AM I?

Understanding Customers


Our Product / Solution

Employee International

Student

Resource Manager

Job Seeker

Domestic Student

HR Associate

3rd Party Vendor

Accounting System

HR System

Payment System

Context Diagram


Note: Examples based on a conceptual online learning / professional development

web site product.

Product

System

Containing System

Broader Environment

Employee

International Student

Resource Manager

Job Seeker

Domestic Student

HR Associate

3rd Party Vendor

Accounting System

HR System

Payment System

Onion Diagram

Adapted from How To Visualize Stakeholder Analysis By Scott Sehlhorst


•  Use Case Diagrams take us a level deeper – to help us understand how Stakeholders may interact with the solution at the Feature level.

Manage online profile

Search Online Courses

Track My Learning

Read/Write Reviews

Manage My Ratings and Comments

Register for Online Course

Manage Enterprise Licenses

Student

International Student

Virtual Training in native language

Manager

Job Seeker Find a Job

Use Case Diagram


User Personas

Jill – Online, Self-Learner

Characteristics Business Analyst with 3-4 years experience, proficient with web, knowledgeable of Agile but new to practice.

Goals Improve depth of Agile knowledge, gain confidence in employing Agile methods of gathering/documenting requirements, quickly learn how the BA role fits into the team (including business and IT cohorts).

Likes / Needs Intuitive, easy-to-navigate learning site with a simple but visually-appealing user interface, ability to pause or exit and return to a video later (resuming where she left off), ready access to free content as her employer has limited training funds. She also would like the ability to access videos from work and home and have phone/chat support to resolve issues.

Frustrations / Pain Points

Confusing links, conflicting messages, lots of text on a webpage, plain or difficult-to-read fonts, unprofessional-looking websites. She also dislikes having to find “Do-it-yourself” help to issues in online forums.


Professional Development

Cost

Pain Gain

Think & Feel?

See?

Say & Do?

Hear?

course pricing

interested in course

offerings

how much does an

online course

cost?

course details

able to take online

course

confusing site

navigation

What others

are saying

about a

course

my experience with online

courses Enroll in an

online course

Empathy Map

Adapted from Innovation Games / XPLANE


Exercise – Understanding your Customer

Pair up and discuss how you can use

Empathy Maps or Personas to

explore a key Customer or User’s

role and needs? Give it a try…


How should Business view Agile?

Putting Agile into the Business’ hands

We need to help them answer the question – “What’s in it for Me?”


Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

Biz & IT Must Work Together!


Courtesy of VersionOne


The goal is to get customer feedback

Product Demos

Inspect and Adapt the Product... to ensure they are satisfied AND to help them harness change for their competitive advantage…


How should we collaborate?

Effectively

Sincerely

Deeply


What would Partners do? - Stop thinking of IT as just a “Service provider” and of Business simply as a “Stakeholder” - Start reflecting together, as a team, on how to improve our working relationship - Start sharing Goals and Accountability

Start thinking and acting like Partners


Facilitate a Retrospective with your business partners and customers to ask:

How well are we collaborating? Are we producing real business results? Do we have the right measures for success? Do we have the right expertise to be effective?

Reflect Together


Alter our language…

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

solutions!

collaborate

…as a team!

OH! – and stop using the “Pig and Chicken” metaphor!


Change our World!

BUT! We can change the way we work with our Customers and Stakeholders… To improve our: ü Collaboration ü Product Quality ü Corporate Culture

OK, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch.


Q&A

Thank You

www.linkedin.com/in/richarddolman [email protected]

[email protected]
