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

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Annual Study ��of Product Team Performance

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

* Addison Wesley

*

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Training Teams: Agile��

1-4 weeks

© Ron Lichty 5

Debugging Software Teams ��Transforming Chaos to Clarity

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•  Product Management is essential

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•  Product Management is essential– Technical– Effective– Experienced

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Scattershot, Hit-or-Miss Development

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Scattershot, Hit-or-Miss Development

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

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Development Is Distracted

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Be an umbrella to the noise

--John Evans photo

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--John Evans photo

•  Speed of Ideation exceeds the Speed of Development

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--John Evans photo

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

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Let developers focus

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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

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��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


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


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Developers Are Lackluster

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Connect the vision with the team’s work

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

Create an Agile Culture

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Developers Aren’t Following the Plan

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Order the Backlog by Value


Development Is on a Death March

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Provide Clarity: Scope or Deadline???

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What You’re Getting ≠ What You Wanted

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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

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Team Doesn’t Get the Vision

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Engage Developers with Real Users

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Developers Go Unheard

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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

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•  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

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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

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Sprints Are a Mishmash of Stuff

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Theme Your Sprints



Product Management is essential

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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, [email protected]

•  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

Engineering challenges, product management solutions - product camp 2016

Technology