Agile Lean Startup Mind Meld Published Version

AGILE – LEAN STARTUP

MIND MELD

http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemartinpmpSteve Martin

Overview

Apply the Agile – Lean Startup Mind Meld Map

via a case study

The Map

The Opportunity

Lean Startup Concepts

Agile Concepts

Please feel free to ask questions throughout*

To get deck, via LinkedIn with me or leave your info…

Scope of this session

We only have ~35 minutes

together today.

There will be a lot of

“templates”

Don’t get hung up on

templates.

Instead, focus on the

context and relationships

between them.

The Map

Persona

LMC or

BMC

Kanban

Demo

Retro

Daily

StandupExperimentsStories

Prioritized

Backlog

Release

RoadmapRelease

Plan

LSU AGILE

Scrum

Working

Software

Your Easy To Read Agile – Lean Startup Mind Meld (Abridged Version)

MVP

It’s just that easy. Really.

Making it back to the Enterprise alive…

The templates themselves are unimportant.

The critical thinking behind them is.

The Problem Opportunity

The problem opportunity…

Large publically traded company

Wanted to improve the top line (more $$)

Retain high value customers

Branch into new markets

What does the market want?

Simple A/B testing, no?


Technologies involved:

Web front ends

Mobile app

Legacy main frame

Finances

“Green Screen”

Customer Service

Heavy services layers

Fragile architecture

Bottom line: Not conducive to A/B testing.


Nearly 2 years to get a product out the door…

Some obvious risks include:

12-18 months build9 months approval

Customer may not want product

High investment, unclear outcomes

Market has shifted

Approach

Employ use of Lean Startup and Agile concepts in short term to:

Deliver in small chunks more quickly, iterating and building functionality over time (versus waiting for a “big bang”)

Validate problem-solution fit

Longer term: Validate product-market fit

Top

Line

Growth

Goal:

Lean Startup Concepts

What are some LSU concepts that “inspired” us?

Persona

LMC or

BMC

Kanban

Demo

Retro

Daily


Prioritized

Backlog

Release

RoadmapRelease

Plan

LSU AGILE

Scrum

Working

Software


MVP

Pragmatic Personas – Understanding your Customers

Image Source: http://www.marketergizmo.com/complete-guide-agile-content-strategy/

Personas, Customer Segments, Problems

Personas led us to high probability customer segments

Each customer segment had a potential spend

Used “real” numbers (ballparks…)

Prioritized on segments

What was this segment’s “problem”?

Started listing assumptions

What experiments did we want to explore?

MVP – Minimum Viable Product

Smallest unit of work where you can learn

something

Mash-up/preview from Agile:

You get greater learning (feedback) from working

software over documentation.

Build-Measure-Learn Loop

Image Source: http://www.meeteor.com/blog/lean-startup/

What are some Agile concepts that “inspired” us?

Agile Concepts

Persona

LMC or

BMC

Kanban

Demo

Retro

Daily


Prioritized

Backlog

Release

RoadmapRelease

Plan

LSU AGILE

Scrum

Working

Software


MVP

What is Agile?

Agile can be considered more of a philosophy than a

methodology

It is an adaptive approach to doing work; sense &

respond

There are many “flavors” of Agile

Scrum, Kanban, Lean, XP, etc.

Put the principles and values into practice, you are

“agile”

An Empirical Process

Many Agile methods are based in using an empirical process

An empirical process embraces change vs discouraging it

We don’t necessarily know a lot of details up front,

but rather, learn as we go

The 3 components of any empirical process are:

Inspect

Adapt

Transparency

Incremental

Iterative

Agile: both iterative and incremental

development

Using sections from the

LMC, personas, concept

of MVP, and experiment

maps, we started to

play around with

releases.

In the first attempt

creating a roadmap of

releases, we focused on

sets of features, since

this is what they were

most used to.

Roadmap of Releases: First Iteration

Rethinking Personas:

What’s the Relationship between them?

Roadmap of Releases: Second Iteration

Release 1.0

Theme of Release 1.0

(10-12 words – why?)

For who ?

Bulleted list

of outcomes

for this

release.

What are

you

learning?

Release 1.1



For who ?

Bulleted list

of outcomes

for this

release.

What are

you

learning?

Release 2.0



For who ?

Bulleted list

of outcomes

for this

release.

What are

you

learning?

Release Planning

Break down the first

release into a series of

iterations where we could

create the solutions and

prepare them so we can

get feedback.

Release 1.0



For who ?

Bulleted list of

outcomes for

this release.

What are you

learning?

…Iteration 1 Iteration 3Iteration 2 Iteration 4

Iteration 1 Iteration 3Iteration 2

Theme T1S1 Theme T1S2 Theme T1S3



Team 1

Team 2

Team 3

Iteration 4

Theme T1S4

Theme T2S4

Theme T3S4

Release 1.0

“Certain” “Fuzzy” “Squishy” “Pipe Dream”

Output from Release Planning

…

Iteration 1 Theme Iteration 3 ThemeIteration 2 Theme Iteration 4 Theme

At the end of each iteration…

Demo of working software with key internal

stakeholders

Gain feedback:

Release as-is or add more?

Adapt work in next iteration?

Persona

LMC or

BMC

Kanban

Demo

Retro

Daily


Prioritized

Backlog

Release

RoadmapRelease

Plan

LSU AGILE

Scrum

Working

Software


MVP

What made this “successful?”

Cross functional team from all parts of the

organization

In a room together (no virtual)

Read-outs at the end of each day to executive

sponsors (gain feedback on the process)

Plan created by the participants (greater buy-in)

Shift in mindset from a project with tasks to critical

thinking to outcomes and understanding “why”

Is this Agile? Is this LSU?

Is this Agile? Is this LSU?

Bless your heart.

Parting Thoughts:

Some synergies between Agile and Lean Startup

Agile:

1. Iterative & Incremental

2. Inspect and adapt

3. Transparency

4. Releases as sets of features

to deliver value

5. Real data, feedback to

guide future iterations

6. Cross functional teamwork,

looking at outcomes

LSU:

1. MVP

2. Build-Measure-Learn

3. Transparency

4. Experiments as releases to learn

problem/solution fit and

product/market fit

5. Real data, feedback to guide

future experiments

6. Cross functional teamwork,

looking at outcomes

Steve Martin

www.linkedin.com/in/stevemartinpmp

Questions and Discussion

Agile Lean Startup Mind Meld Published Version

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