Product strategy in a customer centric company at LeanKit
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Transcript of Product strategy in a customer centric company at LeanKit
@iterativeleaps
Product Strategy in a customer-centric company
Florent de Gantes, Atlanta Scrum User Group, 9/28/2016
@iterativeleaps
Words of wisdom
“Figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.”
Ben Horowitz, the Hard Thing about Hard Things
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Agenda
1. This guy
2. This company
3. How LeanKit thinks about Lean
4. How LeanKit delivers on product strategy
5. That company
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Who am I?
● Born● Grew up● Ski● Soccer● Amstrad CPC-6128● TI-92
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Who am I?
● CS/EE major● Je ne sais quoi
● Born● Grew up● Ski● Soccer● Amstrad CPC-6128● TI-92
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Who am I?
● Masters, IT & Mobile
● Fly Fishing● Scotch Tasting
Society
● Corporate Strategy
● Met my (now) wife
● Management Consultant● Worked in Russia,
Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Ukraine, …
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Who am I?
got an MBA, got into tech, married Caroline
Product Manager on Ads platforms, became dad to Robert
VP Product Strategy, became dad to Alice
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Agenda
1. This guy
2. This company
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Who we are“A leader in Lean for business and the only enterprise Lean-based process and work management software provider”
Gartner Technology Research, 2016
Enable Teams to DeliverCustomer Value, Faster
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Our customers
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What we do
• Visual Work Management
• Enable Multi-Level Collaboration
• Anytime, Anywhere
Enable teams to deliver customer value, faster
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Visual work management: getting started
1. Visualize work
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Visual work management: getting started
2. Focus on flow
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3. Limit work in progress (WIP)
Visual work management: getting started
(2)
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4. Continuous improvement
Visual work management: getting started
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• We’re experts in the “new” Lean – Lean for business.
• We build software that harnesses the innate preference for consuming visual information.
• Offices in Franklin, TN and London, UK
• 150 employees at last guesstimate
LeanKit
Create harmonious business flow across an enterprise.
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Agenda
1. This guy
2. This company
3. How LeanKit thinks about Lean
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Change is a given
We can’t control it
Prepare for bad
Embrace good
Water-fail
Laundry List
Gold plate
Slap Together
Blamestorm
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Many people you meet will have a narrow software development centric view of modern management ideas
Agile
Scrum
XP
LeanKanban?
DSDMNope
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1950s-1980s 1980s 1990s 2000s Today
TOC
Just-In-Time
Kanban
Lean(Manufacturing)
Lean IT(SAFe & ITSM)
Lean Engineering
ToyotaProduction
System
Six Sigma
TQM
Agile
XP
Scrum
Lean Construction
Lean (Startup) Enterprise
DevOpsUnderstanding shared heritage broadens learning and eases communication
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Lean ideas are seemingly common sense
But they conflict with typical corporate accounting & HR practices
Simple,Not easy
Measure to Manage
Focus on rapid flow of value & fast feedback loops vs up-front planning & high utilization of all resources
Motivation
Belief in the intrinsic motivation of clear purpose vs extrinsic motivation driven by rewards & punishment
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Lean principles map to Agile best practices – and enable
them at scale
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Cadence is crucial to working Lean
1 2 3 4 65
Jan 4
All Hands
Annual Kickoff
Board Jan 27
Feb 15 May 9 June 20
All Hands
Mid-Year Party
BoardJul 29
Aug 1Mar 28
All Leaders
Board Apr 22
7
Sep 12
All Leaders
Board Oct 21
8
Oct 24
Long sweep to allow for holidays
MLK Birthday
Good FridayMemorial
Day July 4th Labor DayThanksgiving
ChristmasNew Years
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Agenda
1. This guy
2. This company
3. How LeanKit thinks about Lean
4. How we deliver on our product strategy
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Our product mission
“Make work visualization and process improvement delightful to create habits that empower happy people to
deliver value faster to their customers”
Florent de Gantes, 5 min before this presentation, riffing on Margaret Thatcher
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Driving strategy with each little stepTake an Economic View
Actively Manage Queues
Understand and Exploit Variability
Cadence and Synchronization
Decentralize Control
Reduce Batch Sizes
Source: Don Reinertsen, Principles of Product Development Flow
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Balance three product directions
A3 team Tribal Council
Architecture Committee
Decentralize Control
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A3 team has dual roadmap input
WhatWho When
Tribal Leaders Product Managers
Executive Team
Council MembersCustomer Success
SalesDemand Gen
Product MarketingDocumentation
Support
Discuss Roadmap
assumptions
Product design, personas, feature use
cases
Commercialization & Edition plans
Every Other Week1 hour meeting
Every Other SweepTriage feedback from
customers
Every Other SweepAlign on longer term thinking & 6-month roadmap themes
Decentralize Control
Tribal Council owns the roadmap
WhatWho When
Discuss Road Map
Departmental Policies
Tribal Leaders PD Execs
Council MembersProduct Managers
UX Leads
Technical Managers in their role as Delivery
Leads
Mon - WedStand-up to surface
delivery issues
ThuFull meeting to resolve
issues
Decentralize Control
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WhatWho When
Discuss Technical standards
AT-AT Roadmap
Develop A3’s for additional
sustainability investments
Chairmen CTO & CIO
MembersTechnical Managers in their role as Architects
TueWorking session
ThuReport back to Tribal
Council
Architect. Committee owns techDecentralize Control
Delivery: autonomous Work Cells
Career Management
Hiring
Training
Standards
Mentoring
SquadDelivery
Goal is 7 +/- 2 members
Has skills for 80% of work - X-Functional or Service Center
Member can belong to only 1 squad
Located together (physically or virtually)
Work assigned to the squad not squad members
Guild
Decentralize Control
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Squad Rooms = conversationsDecentralize Control
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Cost of delay - when relevant• We will use Cost of Delay when (information value > information cost)• Information value is high when:
– a queue of competing projects is formed (i.e. there’s a bottleneck)– the projects’ business outcomes are not directly comparable– realistic assumptions can help estimate the business outcomes
• Information cost is low when– *some* estimate can be made quickly – a bank of existing metrics is available, and people learn to DIY– experts are easily identified and accessible
Take an Economic View
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Value created Value captured
Key metrics
Definition
Value of modeling
Usage metrics (e.g., time to perform tasks / jobs)
Economic value of solving the problem for all relevant users
Easier to test for, fewer assumptions, shorter lead timeKey assumptions comparable across projects (opportunity cost of users’ time, capture rate)
Operational metrics: # of seats, ARPU, costs, etc
Leankit operating profit
Translates better to actual money in the bank (as long as assumptions are correct)
Cost of Delay can be strategicTake an Economic View
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A3s evolve as we learn moreFramework for LeanKit A3 - documents are handwritten, drafted then rewritten numerous times
PROBLEM STATEMENT CONSTRAINTS
What problems are we trying to solve for customers and users (either internal or external)?
What should Design Studio consider in designing a solution? How does the current model work for non-target users?
TARGET USERS NEW USER EXPERIENCE
Which personas will benefit? What “job” are they “hiring” LeanKit to do? What Edition will we target?
How will the interface (web, mobile, API) and user workflow change?
COST OF DELAY VALIDATION & MEASUREMENT PLAN
What is the opportunity cost to users if we don’t solve this next sweep? When do we declare success?
How do we make sure we solved the problem?
Product Feedback process = the problem A3 planning process = the solution
Actively Manage Queues
Find a copy of our A3 template here
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FSGD - our development mottoReduce Batch Size
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MVP drives better product outcomesReduce Batch Size
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An example from real lifeReduce Batch Size
• Wright Brothers = bicycle makers• First prototype - small glides in
sand• Pulled by one Wright brother,
running & pulling a rope• Outer Banks, NC: chosen
because of strong winds
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SWEEPS - Aligning Cadence to Calendar
1 2 3 4 65
Jan 4
All Hands
Annual Kickoff
Board Jan 27
Feb 15 May 9 June 20
All Hands
Mid-Year Party
BoardJul 29
Aug 1Mar 28
All Leaders
Board Apr 22
7
Sep 12
All Leaders
Board Oct 21
8
Oct 24
Long sweep to allow for holidays
MLK Birthday
Good FridayMemorial
Day July 4th Labor DayThanksgiving
ChristmasNew Years
Cadence and Synchronize
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Structured learning loop
Sequenced A3s solving problems
“Next up”: most valuable & feasible A3
Specific A3 in production
Themes of problems
Design Studio: twice a sweep
User Testing: 2+ times a sweep
Product feedback Intervals: once a sweep
User Group: once a sweep
A3 Meeting: 3 times a sweep
Cadence and Synchronize
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Each sweep has its own cadence
Week 0 Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 5Week 4
PullPlanning
Hackathon
or
SquadDrivenWork
A3 A3 A3A3
Cadence and Synchronize
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From A3 to Working Software
Draft Scan & attach to roadmap
card
Hang original on big wall
Link card to other product
documents
Use to develop DIV’s
Cadence and Synchronize
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Demonstrating Progress, often• Review Roadmap to level set • Demonstrate completed work by team• Report results against two metrics:
– # deployments to production– % squads demo’ing completed product
• Covers both marketability & sustainability results
• Discuss with revenue teammates transition plans for their phase of delivering the product to customers
Cadence and Synchronize
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Understand and Exploit variabilityLeave slack in the system
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• Valuable small product ideas that are not on roadmap
• Requires squad consensus• Does not require A3 or roadmap approval• Can be:
– Sustainability– UX improvements– Research for A3 submissions
• Executed by squads, but multi-squad collaboration projects are allowed
Squad Driven WorkUnderstand and Exploit variability
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Hackathons
• 1st week of every 4th sweep• Participants can be remote• Self-organizing teams (recommended 7 max)• No need for cost of delay analysis• Appropriate things to hack on:
– Experiments– Low hanging fruit– Research
• NOT for starting big projects
Understand and Exploit variability
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Agenda
1. This guy
2. This company
3. How LeanKit thinks about Lean
4. How we deliver on our product strategy
5. That company
@iterativeleaps
Could Google get any better?
• Google = Lean??• Good:
– OKR: Objectives & Key Results– “in God we trust, all others bring data”
• Bad: – Heavily coupled vs microservices– Technology centric vs Customer
Centric– “Perf” vs individual Scorecards
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leankit.com/learn
• Articles
• E-books
• Webinars
• Templates
• Case Studies
Key Reading Online
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leankit.com/learn
• Articles
• E-books
• Webinars
• Templates
• Case Studies
Key ReadingKanban: Successful evolutionary change for your technology business- David J. Anderson
Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life- Jim Benson, Tonianne DeMaria Barry
Real-World Kanban: Do Less, Accomplish More with Lean Thinking- Mattias Skarin
Lean from the Trenches: Managing Large-Scale Projects with Kanban- Henrik Kniberg
Principles of Product Development Flow- Don Reinertsen
Winning with Data- Tomas Tungusz
Online
www.leankit.com
@iterativeleaps
©2016 LeanKit Inc.