During a retrospective, as a product development team working in a complex matrix organization, we discovered a number of problems including: Delayed work in a sprint due to dependencies that could have been discovered earlier Missing key documentation for downstream data reporting teams Missing the opportunity to use feature toggles Not clearly defining and/or capturing … Read more Improving User Story Conversations and Outcomes
As a Product person, have you ever had difficulty prioritizing work and deciding which items hold the highest value? Try having a session with your respective business stakeholders prior to starting development to prioritize work based on business value. This means having stakeholders from groups such as marketing, operations, sales, etc. assign a point estimate … Read more Determining Priority and Value with Business Stakeholders
Does your company use product road maps for planning and growing the product toward the vision? Product road maps help build alignment among stakeholders and the product development teams. Here are some things I have found make up a valuable product road map: Focus on high level customer defined features being shipped over the next … Read more Visualize Your Product through a Product Road Map
How often does a plan change? Have you ever experienced trying to stick with a plan, knowing that it is going to fail? Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” In an Agile organization, planning is one of the keys to success for any team. In the Agile Manifesto, this … Read more Importance of Planning
User stories are commonly used in agile software development. I hear a lot of different ways on how to do them and the intent behind them. Therefore, I wanted to share my understanding so far based on my agile journey. Let’s start with the history of a user story and why they were introduced. The … Read more Understanding User Stories
When developing a product or working on a project, do you find that you focus on too many priorities? Do you try and get everything done before getting feedback? Do you hesitate to have a customer try the product thinking that they may not like it? What if you started thinking in a different way? … Read more Get Customer Feedback Quickly
Have you been in an environment where the focus is on projects instead of products? Something that I have run into throughout my career is the focus on projects over products. This can lead to a lot of disadvantages. In the book, Large Scale Scrum: More with LeSS, by Bas Vodde and Craig Larman, they list … Read more Product Focus Over Project Focus
Do you find that your requirements change during development? The second principle of Agile states, “Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.” This principle also emphasizes the importance of changing for the good of your customer. In Scrum, the backlog/requirements are based on maximizing value of the … Read more Changing Requirements