Leading and Motivating Engineers - what product managers need to know - product camp '17

Leading And Motivating Engineers: What Product Managers Need To Know

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

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Debugging Software Teams

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Debugging Software TeamsTransforming Chaos to

Clarity• Product Management is essential

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Clarity• Product Management is essential– Technical– Effective– Experienced

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Clarity• Product Management is essential

– Technical– Effective– Experienced

• Product Managers have to lead– Vision– Data– Collaboration– Prioritization

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Vision

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Scattershot, Hit-or-Miss Development

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

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It Starts with Vision

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… Based on Data

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Your Opportunity:Engage Developers with Real

Users

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Engage Users

• Open a connection to users for developers

• Remember: It’s about delighting users!

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Project WorkflowVision

Project Workflow

Roadmap

Vision

Project WorkflowVision -> Roadmap ->

Project

Project Workflow

Epics & Stories

Listin

gProject

Cost of Adding Features Spikes

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Project Workflow

Technical PBIs*

Epics & Stories

*PBI: Product Backlog Items; list provided by technical leadership

Listin

gProject

Project Workflow

Technical PBIs*

Epics & Stories


Sizing

Listin

g

Sizing

Project

Project Workflow

Technical PBIs*

Epics & Stories


Sizing

Orderi

ng

Listin

g

Sizing

Project

Order the Backlog by Value


Ordering: Value / Size: ROI

Technical PBIs*

Epics & Stories


Sizing

ROIOrderi

ng

Listin

g

Sizing

Project

Ordering: Not Just ROI

Technical PBIs*

Epics & Stories


Sizing

ROI/Dependencies/

Risk

Orderi

ng

Listin

g

Sizing

Project

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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Ordering Is More than ROI

• Good user-story ordering is a collaboration with Eng– take dependencies into account– support risk-first development– reduce uncertainty– enable design to emerge– test architecture– listen for opportunities

Ordering: Not Just ROI

Technical PBIs*

Epics & Stories


Sizing

ROI/Dependencies/

Risk

Orderi

ng

Listin

g

Sizing

Project

Project Workflow

Technical PBIs*

Epics & Stories


Sizing

Urgency / RiskROI/Dependencies/

Risk

Orderi

ng

Listin

g

Sizing

Project

Project Workflow

Technical PBIs*

Epics & Stories


Sizing


Risk

Orderi

ng

Listin

g

Product BacklogInt

egrati

ng

Sizing

with ~ 2 ½ sprints detailed

Project

Provide Clarity: Scope or Deadline???

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Project WorkflowProject

Technical PBIs*

Epics & Stories


Two-Pass Sizing


Risk

Orderi

ng

Listin

g

Product BacklogSprint Backlog

Integr

ating

Sizing

Planni

ngwith ~ 2 ½ sprints detailed

Sprints Are a Mishmash of Stuff

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

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Theme Your Sprints


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Manage Stakeholders / Protect Developers

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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


• Courage: “Great idea! I’ll put that in the backlog”

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--John Evans photo


• Courage: “Great idea! I’ll put that in the backlog”

• Prioritize: Developers want to do what customers value

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Let developers focus


Don’t Be a Source of Interruptions


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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Enliven Your Developers!

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Connect the vision with the team’s work

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

Prioritize

• Developers want to know they’re working on the stuff customers will value most!

• There is no such thing as “2 top priorities”!

• Get good at the mantra, “I’ll put it in the backlog”

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Prioritize

• Developers want to know they’re working on the stuff customers will value most!

• There is no such thing as “2 top priorities”!

• Get good at the mantra, “I’ll put it in the backlog”

• “If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.”— Sheila Brady, Apple project management guru

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Personify Agile Culture

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Personify Agile Culture

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• Focus on fomenting amazing teamwork– on supporting the team becoming high performance

Deliver Clarity

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Deliver Clarity / Be Present• 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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Share the “What” not the “How”

• It’s subtle

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Be Available

• Be there with clarity– with the priorities / with the backlog

– with the stories– with the acceptance tests– with the detail– with the clarity / the disambiguation

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Listen to Developers

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• Support a culture of communication– at every level– with everyone

• up, down, within and across

• “We have two ears and one mouth. Use them in this ratio.”— Kimberly Wiefling

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“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

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Listen, Ask

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• Developers want to delight customers, too

• They see opportunities in the code

• Give them context / expect rich options

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Projects Not Suitable for Agile?

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• Micromanagement

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• Micromanagement disrupts Agile• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams

• Micromanagement prevents Learning• Micromanaged teams become order-takers

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• Micromanagement disrupts Agile• Micromanagement prevents Best Teams

• Micromanagement prevents Learning• Micromanaged teams become order-takers

• Agile calls for everyone on the team to step up

• Micromanagement causes everyone to step back

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Partner

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Photo by Esti Alvarez, Some rights reserved, http://www.Flickr.com/photos/esti/4638056301/


Clarity

Product Management is essential

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Clarity

Product Management leadership and

motivation are essential

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Rules of Thumb / Nuggets of Wisdom*

* 300 in the book / more at http://managingtheunmanageable.net/morerulesofthumb.html

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Ron Lichty Consulting • Interim & acting CTO/VP Eng roles / making development

hum– http://ronlichty.com, [email protected]

• The book and the video training: 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: Zero to Agile in Three DaysThe Agile ManagerManaging Software People and Teams

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