Engineering challenges, product management solutions - product camp 2016

Engineering Challenges / Product Management Solutions

Ron Lichty, principal, Ron Lichty Consulting author, Managing the Unmanageable

www.RonLichty.com www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net

Ron Lichty,��� Managing Development & Product Teams ���

SOFTWEST

2

Annual Study ���of Product Team Performance

http://www.ronlichty.com/study.html © Ron Lichty 3

* Addison Wesley

*

© Ron Lichty 4

Training Teams: Agile���

1-4 weeks

© Ron Lichty 5

Debugging Software Teams ���Transforming Chaos to Clarity

© Ron Lichty 6

Debugging Software Teams ���Transforming Chaos to Clarity

•  Product Management is essential

© Ron Lichty 7

Debugging Software Teams ���Transforming Chaos to Clarity

•  Product Management is essential– Technical– Effective– Experienced

© Ron Lichty 8

Scattershot, Hit-or-Miss Development

pixabay.com

© Ron Lichty 9

Scattershot, Hit-or-Miss Development

•  It’s PdM that supplies consistent direction–  vision–  roadmap–  prioritized backlogs of stories–  theming sprints

© Ron Lichty 10

Development Is Distracted

pixabay.com

© Ron Lichty 11

Be an umbrella to the noise

--John Evans photo

© Ron Lichty 12

Be an umbrella to the noise

--John Evans photo

•  Speed of Ideation exceeds the Speed of Development

© Ron Lichty 13

Be an umbrella to the noise

--John Evans photo

•  Speed of Ideation exceeds the Speed of Development•  Courage: “Great idea! I’ll put that in the backlog”

© Ron Lichty 14

Let developers focus

© Ron Lichty 15pixabay.com

Source: Mike Cohn, citing Steven C.Wheelwright and Kim B.Clark (1993), Revolutionizing Product Development: Quantum Leaps in Speed, Efficiency and Quality, 1993

Don’t Be a Source of Multitasking

© Ron Lichty 16

���taking communications overload into account ���

Source: Rob Maher, “Increasing Team Productivity: A project focus creates waste and leaves value on the table”, Scrum.org Whitepapers

Rob Maher, surmising that email, texts, IRC, chat, smartphones together represent a second “task”Source: Mike Cohn, citing Steven C.Wheelwright and Kim B.Clark (1993), Revolutionizing Product Development: Quantum Leaps in Speed, Efficiency and Quality, 1993

Don’t Be a Source of Multitasking

© Ron Lichty 17

--Larry Maccherone, The Impact of Agile Quantified, Rally, 2013

Don’t Be a Source of Multitasking

© Ron Lichty 18

Developers Are Lackluster

pixabay.com

© Ron Lichty 19

Connect the vision with the team’s work

http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net© Ron Lichty

Create an Agile Culture

© Ron Lichty 21

Developers Aren’t Following the Plan

pixabay.com

© Ron Lichty 22

Order the Backlog by Value

© Ron Lichty 23pixabay.com

Development Is on a Death March

© Ron Lichty 24

Provide Clarity: Scope or Deadline???

© Ron Lichty 25

What You’re Getting ≠ What You Wanted

© Ron Lichty 26

What You’re Getting ≠ What You Wanted•  Clear requirements•  Always based on the customer•  An answer to every ambiguity•  The “what”; for context the “who” & the “why”•  Never the demotivating “how”•  How we’ll know we’ve achieved success: UATs•  3rd ‘C’ in Planning Meeting 3 C’s: Confirmation

© Ron Lichty 27

Team Doesn’t Get the Vision

pixabay.com

© Ron Lichty 28

Engage Developers with Real Users

pixabay.com

© Ron Lichty 29

Developers Go Unheard

pixabay.com

© Ron Lichty 30

Developers Go Unheard

“If you’re just using your engineers to code, you’re losing half their value.”

“The single biggest innovator in many companies is the tech lead.”

--Marty Cagan© Ron Lichty 31

Listen, Ask

pixabay.com

•  Developers want to delight customers, too•  They see opportunities in the code•  Give them context / expect rich options© Ron Lichty 32

Cost of Adding Features Spikes

pixabay.com

© Ron Lichty 33

Groom the Backlog in Collaboration ���with your Tech Lead!

•  PdMs are responsible for the backlog•  Critical technical Product Backlog Items:

–  just-enough architecture–  resolving technical risk–  automating building and testing– fixing critical bugs

•  Either–  collaboratively interweave technical PBIs–  assign nn% every sprint to tech team stories

© Ron Lichty 34

Sprints Are a Mishmash of Stuff

pixabay.com

© Ron Lichty 35

Theme Your Sprints

© Ron Lichty 36pixabay.com

Debugging Software Teams ���Transforming Chaos to Clarity

Product Management is essential

© Ron Lichty 37

Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*

* 300 in the book / more at http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html© Ron Lichty 38

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 TeamsThe Agile ManagerManaging Software People and Teams

© Ron Lichty 39