Agile “Hacks” for Product Managers

"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." - W. Edwards Deming

Tonight’s agenda…

• Who is this guy?

• Define our terms, like “agile” and “product management”

• Establish some basic principles for product development

• Discuss specific, actionable tactics

• Questions & discussion

Who is this guy?

What is Product Management?

What is Agile?

eXtreme Programming

• Pair programming

• TDD

• Continuous Integration

• Iterations / Feedback loops

Scrum

• Fixed roles

• Fixed time boxes

• Specific rituals

• Ultimate metric = “velocity”

• Great for homogeneous tech work in a known space

Kanban

• Focus on “flow of work” over individuals

• No predefined roles or cadences

• Ultimate metric = “cycle time”

• Really good for heterogeneous work in uncertain spaces

What is Lean?

First Principles

Start with Value

Engineers are humans

Respect Conway’s Law

Time vs. Space

Cost of Delay

Management vs. Leadership

Management• Responsible for the happiness and effectiveness of reports.

• Help set their goals and ensure alignment with company goals.

• Focus on the what, not the how. Begin every conversation by clarifying the goal.

• Remove obstacles, and delegate specialized tasks.

• Don’t dictate “how” or micro-manage.

Leadership

• Does not have to be hierarchical. Anyone can be a leader!

• Based on ability to influence opinion, more than any formal organization structures.

• Speak up, because others are probably thinking the same, but afraid to say it.

• Make an example of yourself. Eat your own dog food!

Tactics

Tactics

• Cadences

• Daily

• Weekly

• Monthly

Tactics

• Feedback loops

• Organization

• Team

• Individual

• System

Tactics

• Teamwork

• Visualize the work

• Do one thing at a time.

• Minimize hand-offs between people.

• Watch the work, not the worker.

Tactics

• Technical Practices

• Pairing. It’s not just for engineers!

• Minimal distance from concept to code.

• Ruthlessly minimize dependencies.

• Stop the line!

References

• Reinertsen, Don - Flow: Principles of Lean Product Development

• Beck, Kent - Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, 2nd Edition

• Reis, Eric - The Lean Startup

• Humble, Jez and David Farley - Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation.

Two quick plugs…

• POPVOX.com

• bit.ly/startup-patterns

Questions?