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The Agile Product Manager / Product Owner Dilemma

Rich Mironov18 January 2012

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About Rich Mironov

Veteran product manager/exec/strategist Business models, pricing, agile Organizing product organizations “What do customers want?”

5 startups, including as CEO/founder Author of “The Art of Product

Management” and Product Bytes blog Founded Product Camp, chaired first

product stage at annual Agile conference

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3

Agenda

What does a product manager do? Agile overview Agile and product managers/owners Conclusions

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Disjoint Communities

Product Managers Agile Community

Still nearly empty,very lonely

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What Does a Product Manager Do?

For commercial / revenue software… PM drives delivery and market acceptance

of whole products PM targets market segments, not

individual customers

For strategic internal development… PM resolves competing priorities PM drives acceptance and adoption

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Development Mktg & Sales

Executives

ProductManagement

What Does a Product Manager Do?

market information, priorities,requirements, roadmaps, MRDs,personas, user stories…

software

strategy, forecasts, commitments, roadmaps, competitive intelligence

budgets, staff,targets

Field input,Market feedback

Segmentation, messages, benefits/features, pricing, qualification, demos…

Markets & Customers

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Product Management Planning Horizons

Daily

Sprint

Strategy

Portfolio

Product

Release

Exec

PM

DevTeam

2 wk

2-9 months

many months

years

many years

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The ideal candidate for a tough job…

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Pragmatic Marketing® Framework

Pricing

Buy, Build or Partner

BusinessPlan

Product Profitability

Win/Loss Analysis

Distinctive Competence

Market Problems

MarketingPlan

Customer Acquisition

Customer Retention

Program Effectiveness

BuyingProcess

Buyer Personas

UserPersonas

Positioning

Product Portfolio

Market Definition

Distribution Strategy

InnovationCompetitive Landscape

Technology Assessment

Lead Generation

Thought Leadership

Referrals & References

LaunchPlan

UseScenarios

Require- ments

Status Dashboard

Product Roadmap

Presentations & Demos

EventSupport

“Special”Calls

ChannelSupport

Channel Training

SalesProcess

Collateral

SalesTools

BusinessMarket ProgramsPlanningStrategy SupportReadinessBusinessMarket ProgramsPlanningStrategy SupportReadiness

Dir, Prod Strategy Prod Mktg Mgr

Tech Prod Mgr

© 1993-2009 Pragmatic Marketing, Inc. All rights reserved

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Nature of PM Role

No natural sequence for PM Must work all aspects in parallel Entire planning onion

Intensely interrupt-driven Bottoms-up shapes top-down,

top-down shapes bottoms-up

Product Management must provide strategy, judgment and integration as well as execution

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11

Agenda

What does a product manager do? Agile overview Agile and product managers/owners Conclusions

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What is Agile?

Umbrella term for various software project management and engineering practices Iterative and collaborative More frequent delivery of smaller increments Building quality in, not adding it at the end Goal of potentially shippable at every iteration Active user involvement (or customer proxy) Self-managing teams Incremental process improvements

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Agile is an Umbrella

ScrumExtreme

Programming (XP)

Agile Project Management Framework

(APM)

Crystal Methods

Dynamic Systems

Development Model (DSDM)

Rational Unified

Process (RUP)

Feature Driven Development

(FDD)

Lean Development

Rapid Application

Development (RAD)

Agile Methods

Test Driven Development

(TDD)

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Discussions about Agile…

Part philosophy and religion Part process, tools, techniques, methods Part organizational design

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Why Not Waterfall?

Waterfall projects rarely deliver

according to planRequirements and estimates

Coding and unit test

System integration & QA

Operation and maintenance

Design

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Fixed Vs. Variable

Fixed

Estimated

Requirements

TimeResources

Time

Features

Plan Driven

ValueDriven

The Plan creates cost/schedule estimates

Release themes and feature intent drive estimates

Waterfall Agile

Resources

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Agile’s Inner Loop(Development)

After: Mike Cohn

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Agile’s Strategic Outer Loop (PM)

•Markets•Customer

s•Biz

Models•Strategy•Portfolios•Funding

•Customers•Sales•Marketin

g•Support•Upgrade

s•EOL/

EOS

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Agenda

What does a product manager do? Agile overview Agile and product managers/owners Conclusions

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Product Owner, Product Manager

Most agilists think about “product owners” Formal part of agile team Needs to be physically present Driving user stories and sub-iteration decisions Showcases are primary method of customer input

Most product managers are not agilists Majority of work to deliver products (revenue) happens

outside Engineering Interacts with markets directly, not filtered through Sales

or Marketing Servicing multiple inbound and outbound queues

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Product Owner’s Calendar

Borrowed from Catherine Connor, Rally

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DevelopmentMarketing/Sales

Customers

Executives

productowner

“small p” product owner

priorities, requirements,personas, user stories…

software

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• Pricing

• Buy, Build or Partner

• BusinessPlan

• Product Profitabili

ty

• Win/Loss Analysis

• Distinctive Competen

ce

• Market Problems

• MarketingPlan

• Customer Acquisitio

n

• Customer Retention

• Program Effectiven

ess

• BuyingProcess

• Buyer Personas

• UserPersonas

• Positioning

• Product Portfolio

• Market Definition

• Distribution

Strategy

• Innovation

• Competitive

Landscape• Technology

Assessment

• Lead Generatio

n

• Thought Leadershi

p

• Referrals &

References

• LaunchPlan

• UseScenarios

• Require ments

• Status Dashboar

d

• Product Roadmap

• Presentations &

Demos

• EventSupport

• “Special”Calls

• ChannelSupport

• Channel Training

• SalesProcess

• Collateral

• SalesTools

• Business

• Market

• Programs

• Planning

• Strategy

• Support

• Readiness

• Business

• Market

• Programs

• Planning

• Strategy

• Support

• Readiness

Adapted Pragmatic Marketing® Framework

product owner

• backlog,

• accept work

• stories

• burn down/up

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Product Manager Failure Modes

Solo Product Manager fails the agile team if… Part-timer, not engaged with team Lack of detail on stories Stale backlog Handwaving and bluster Best of intentions, but pulled in

too many directions “Build what I meant”

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Product Owner Failure Modes

Solo Product Owner fails the market if… Weak on market realities

Pricing, packaging, selling,upgrades, service models, discounting, competitive dynamics

Missing from outbound teams:Marketing, Sales, Support

Trades off company-wide strategy for product features

Confuses showcase customers withbroader market

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PO/PM Organizational Map

GM - VP PM - VP Eng/CTO

product owners

Product Management Organization

more technicalmore market-focused

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Agenda

What does a product manager do? Agile overview Agile and product managers/owners Conclusions

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Conclusions

Product management bridgesengineering, markets and strategic planning

Agile’s focus is on improving development processes

Success requires strongly technical but market-oriented product managers …who mentor product owners

Agile PM

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Contact Information

+1-650-315-7394

rich@mironov.com

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@RichMironov

www.linkedin.com/in/richmironov

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Agile (Scrum) Model

Plan out 1-4 weeks work

Improve process

Review product

Create product needs

Meet daily

Strategic planning

After: Gabrielle Benefield