Product Tank Dublin: Scaling Agile Product Models

Product Managers, Product Owners, Scalable Agile Product Models

RichMironovApril5,2017

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• Veteranproductmanager/exec/strategist• Organizingagileproductorganizations• Smokejumper VP Products

• HP,Tandem,Sybase,6B2Bstartupsas“productguy”orCEO

• TheArtofProductManagement• FoundedProductCamp,blogsince2002

About Rich Mironov

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• Unhelpful: “We’ve created product owners based on scrum definitions. How does our business fit in?

• Backward: “We hired both product managers and product owners. How do we divide responsibilities and ship successful products?”

• Better: “What are the essential Jobs To Be Done for product folks, and how can we help them succeed?”

Framing the Right Question


• Customers/user understand their problems• Customers (usually) mis-design solutions to their problems

• Customers and sales channels generalize every complaint into universal market requirement

• Development will build what we tell them to build• …If we don’t include them in

problem/solution framing

Important Constraints (How Real World Works)


1. Understand opportunities to deliver customer value• Problems before solutions across many customers/users

2. Validate; estimate value and solution cost; iterate• Collaboratively with development, UX and customers

3. Prioritize too many opportunities4. Make time/feature/quality trade-offs

Product Management Jobs To Be Done


Different organizations measure success differently• Product companies: total revenue or profitability• Enlightened Internal IT: actual cost savings or

increased revenue• Benighted Internal IT: on time, on budget, on spec

• Assumes we asked for right things, in right order, which had forecasted impact

Scorekeeping Matters


There’s nothing more wasteful than brilliantly engineering a product (project) that doesn’t matter.

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Slicing the Problem: Small Product at Product Company (1)


Onedevelopmentteam:transactions,reporting,infra…

Development(massivelysimplified)

JTBD/segments(massivelysimplified)

End-to-endproductmanager• Doesown discovery/interviews• Opportunities,priorities,trade-offs• Marketoutcomes($, €,£,¥)

Slicing the Problem: Mid-Sized Product at Product Company (2)




Severalend-to-endproductmanagers

Techvaluestream:DB,security,infra

Techvaluestream:coretransactions

Techvaluestream:Reporting,archiving

Slicing the Problem: Very LargeProduct at Product Company (3)


…


“technical”productmanagers

DB,security

Reporting

partnerAPIs

Admin/LDAP


market/segmentmanagers

Coretransactions

• No single (technical) product manager delivers value• But still need to manage single backlog/priority per team

• Market/segment managers have conflicting priorities: influencers/lobbyists, not deciders• Segments have different “mix” of needs• Technical product managers lose touch with real users

• Requires portfolio-level priorities, solution scope, architecture, UX, pricing (value)

• Tendency to allocate teams entirely to market initiatives• “Postpone” quality, tech debt, research à threadbare feature factory• Stop investing in core capabilities, and usability• Little decision scope of product managers

Scale-Up Challenges for Large Products


One Option: Team-Level Budgeting


Averaged across a quarter… for example...• 50-60% of team points against global initiatives• 20% against local capabilities & features

• Requires that product managers stay in close touch with users

• 20% against quality, automation, DevOps• May delegate decisions on this to team

Very similar challenges:• Budget approvals rarely align with actual value• Demands arrive as solutions (not problems), as defined

by less-technical Business Unit owner or lead user• Lead user often not representative of user baseDoes product owner have right/power to• Confirm/validate problem, then solution?• Reassess internal savings, adoption, rollout, impact?• Set/change team priorities?

What About Product Owners in IT Organizations?


1. Understand user base, opportunities for value• Problems, then solutions

2. Validate, estimate value and solution cost, iterate• Collaborate with development, design and multiple

3. Prioritize (push) for what matters most4. Ask (push) for outcome metrics, measurement5. Celebrate ship dates and user/customer wins

Best (Empowered) IT Product Owners Look Like Product Managers


CONTACT

RichMironov,CEOMironovConsulting233FranklinSt,Suite#308SanFrancisco,CA94102

RichMironov

@RichMironov

[email protected]

+1-650-315-7394

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