Product Management - Quality teams collaboration
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Transcript of Product Management - Quality teams collaboration
QUALITY – PRODUCT
OWNER/MANAGER
COLLABORATIONSreeram Kishore Chavali
South Bay Software Quality Engineering (SBSQE) Meetup
4/23/2013
ABOUT ME
� Enterprise Products
� Satmetrix (SaaS Product – Customer Surveys)
� Product Management (2 years)
� QA (4 years)
� Informatica – Data Warehousing � Informatica – Data Warehousing
� QA (6 years)
� Ramco Systems - ERP
� Development, Release Engineering, QA, Project
Management (6.5 years)
WHY THIS TOPIC?
� Every team wants to be known for
� Productive
� Efficient
� Speed
� High Quality� High Quality
� When interactions are not effective, it can slow
down the team
QUICK POLL
� On a 10 point scale how effective are PM-QA
interactions?
� What attributes are important?
� Clarity of Requirements� Clarity of Requirements
� Timeliness of inputs
� Willingness to answer questions
� Relay Customer Information
� Proactive communication
� Product Knowledge
� Domain expertise
LACK OF COLLABORATION
� Missing in action for a critical review
� Not enough details in spec
� No feedback on test scenarios
� No comments on bugs
No response to emails on clarifications� No response to emails on clarifications
� Customer feedback not known firsthand
� Missing in release planning/tracking meetings
� More…
PRODUCT MANAGER ‘ROLE’ EXPLAINED
� ‘CEO’ of product
� Value
� Investments
� Differentiation
� Everything� Everything
� ‘Janitor’
� Take care of gaps, issues
� Remove obstacles to adoption/usage
� Goals
GOAL 1: PREVENT THIS
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE –
ERRORS IN DEFINITION ARE MULTIPLIED
Range of P
ossib
le Erro
rRange of P
ossib
le Erro
r
True True
CustomeCustome
r Needr NeedDefinition Definition Needs Needs
AssessmentAssessment
Concept Concept
TestingTesting
DevelopmeDevelopme
ntnt
--Usability Usability
TestingTesting
--Beta TestingBeta Testing
TestingTesting Sales/MarketinSales/Marketin
g Rolloutg Rollout
ImplementatiImplementati
on & Supporton & Support
Range of P
ossib
le Erro
rRange of P
ossib
le Erro
r
Product Launch/ReProduct Launch/Re--launch is launch is
Expensive (Time/Money/Opportunity Expensive (Time/Money/Opportunity
Cost)Cost)
GETTING READY?
� I know the needs, domain
� Let me work on ‘detailed spec’
Wait! Are you getting inputs from everyone?� Wait! Are you getting inputs from everyone?
GOAL 2: DEAL WITH THIS
Embattled
Customers
SupportCompetitors
New
Technology
Long Term
Fixes
Embattled
Prod. Mngr.Support
Sales
Engineering
Competitors
Cool
Features
LET ME WORK MORE HOURS
� Ask for input and you get ‘loads’
� Prioritize vs Respond to all
� I am getting better at this
� Wait!! there is more!!
GOAL 3: DON’T KEEP ENGINEERS IDLE
CAN I RELY ON ENGINEERS?
� Big features need details
� Small features are not high value.
� I will give you an idea. Can you build based on
that?
You guys are smart. Do you really need a � You guys are smart. Do you really need a
‘detailed’ spec?
� Build v1 and I will come back
GOAL 4: MAKE RIGHT INVESTMENTS
ISN’T THAT OBVIOUS?
� Talk to anyone: customers, support
� Why do I need to justify problems to solve?
� I don’t get it
� How? Help!!
INTERRUPTIONS
� Sales: Hey Product Manager, we just lost a deal
to competitor. What are you doing about it?
� Support: our customers unhappy about this
feature. Can you confirm this is fixed in next
release? release?
� Pre-Sales: Can you demo this feature today to
customer?
� Execs: Where is updated roadmap?
� Blah, blah, blah
WHERE IS TIME SPENT?
Product Strategy, Roadmap, Release
Planning, Tracking, Execution
Competitive Analysis, Market Research etc.
Execution
Requirements design, validation
Working with Sales, Marketing,
Customers, Support
WELCOME TO DAILY ROUTINE
Embattled
Customers
SupportCompetitors
New
Technology
Long Term
Fixes
Embattled
Prod. Mngr.Support
Sales
Engineering
Competitors
Cool
Features
TIME MANAGEMENT GRID
WHO GETS PRIORITY
Sales
Customers
Support
Executives
Engineering and QA
Executives
Escalations from
everyone often without
context
TIME ‘HOGS’
� Customer visits
� Preparations, briefings before meetings to
understand context
� Actual visit
� Follow up� Follow up
� Escalations
� False Alarms
� Real Issues: Getting to root of the issue after sifting
through ‘big unstructured data’
COMMON (VALID)RESPONSES
� I am busy
� I don’t have context to your question
� I will explain to you orally and will update spec
later
I already told developer (sorry missed to � I already told developer (sorry missed to
invite/copy QA)
� I have too much information to deal with (emails)
PM IS NOT AWARE OF
� Hot fixes
� Each defect filed while testing feature
� Build challenges
� Performance issues (unless customer tells me)
Architecture issue details (I don’t get it)� Architecture issue details (I don’t get it)
� Reliability issues and corner cases
FACTORS IMPACTING PRODUCT MANAGER
EFFECTIVENESS
� PM to Engineering/QA ratio (1:10 or 1:20)
� Domain expertise/Product Experience
� Number of years with company/Familiarity with company products
� Product Lifecycle – New Vs Existing
� Cross functional staffing� Cross functional staffing
� Product Marketing, Sales
� Customer Issues
� Support, Customer escalations
� Understanding of Technology/Architecture
� Distributed team/Team Dynamics
� Communication Gap
� Working Style differences (email, skype or phone calls)
� Context Switching
GROUP DISCUSSION
GROUP DISCUSSION
� List and Prioritize 5 critical things that get
impacted due to lack of collaboration
� Suggest 1 or 2 ideas to help PM become effective
for each of the item
� Share some examples
� What is working?
� What is worst case scenario
� Pick up one example to share with everyone
QUICK POLL
� On a 10 point scale how effective are PM-QA
interactions?
� What attributes are important?
� Clarity of Requirements� Clarity of Requirements
� Timeliness of inputs
� Willingness to answer questions
� Relay Customer Information
� Proactive communication
� Product Knowledge
� Domain expertise
WRAP UP
PM HELPING QA
� Include Engineering, QA in customer meetings
� As passive audience
� Record and share ‘voice of the customer’
� Webex recordings
� Written notes� Written notes
� Both positive and negative feedback
QA HELPING PM
� Define and validate ‘business scenarios’ on
priority. This partnership is key to success.
� Have regular scheduled meetings and close out
open issues in these meetings
� Provide context of bugs for review� Provide context of bugs for review
� Feature status – bug list with severity
� Batch set of clarifications to optimize time
� Help with negative conditions of features
REFERENCES
� Prioritizing feature requests:
� http://svpma.org/eventarchives/SVPMA-02-2001-
Prioritizing_Feature_Requests-Fritz_Mueller.ppt
� Customer Focus
� http://svpma.org/eventarchives/SVPMA-09-2003-� http://svpma.org/eventarchives/SVPMA-09-2003-
The_Importance_of_Customer_Focus-
Geoff_Huckleberry.ppt
� Benefits Realization
� http://svpma.org/wp-
content/uploads/2011/04/Benefits-Realization-with-
Prashanth-Naidu-Hitachi-Data-Systems.pdf