Agile Complexification Inverter

Have you heard about the PO's new assistant?   It is quite the item of gossip - isn't it? Could you imagine if we were to outsource our development jobs to someone?  Someone in another country, a foreigner,  or an artificial life-form, an AI - oh the shame of it all! What would it require to craft an AI with the ability to write a Product Backlog?  Would we require special software, expensive specialist knowledge, and millions of dollars? Would we be able to trust that the user stories the AI wrote and placed in our backlog were the correct requirements for our unique product? It is the 21st Century - we have to be ready! That is a quote from Captian Jack Harkness , and he is in a Time to know. Let's run a test.  Let's try the AI out and see if it could write the basic product backlog for a travel app.  Phone apps have been around now for 15 years or more.  The best ones are targeted at just such a task.   We could then see if the AI generated us...

The product owner calls everyone together and explains the "crazy" direction we are headed and why. Team morale does an immediate 180-degree turnaround and sky-rockets. Product Owner has a Sprint Goal This little tidbit of Sprint Planning often goes unnoticed, is frequently forgotten or never mentioned. But when you see the difference it makes for a bunch of devs that thought we were building the wrong thing and then realize how crafty your product owner is... well you will not forget to insist on the reasons - the goal of sprints you and the team are running. Years ago, in a rainy distant land far from sunny Texas, I worked for a SpeakEasy. The company was a hot-shot in ISD land (Internet Service Delivery in the days of modems). They had this crazy idea to build a Voice-Over-IP telephone product and hired out the tree-hugging hippies from a little consultancy company across the lake. These hippies said they had a new collaborative way to build products that work...

Here's a overview of a Scrum Immersion workshop done at GameStop this month. A case study example. Normally these workshops start with the leadership (the stakeholders or shareholders) which have a vision for a product (or project). This time we skipped this activity. The purpose of the Workshop is to ensure alignment between the leadership team and the Agile Coaches with regards to the upcoming scrum workshop for the team(s). Set expectations for a transition from current (ad-hoc) practices to Scrum. Explain and educate on the role of the Product Owner. Expected Outcomes: Create a transition plan/schedule Set realistic expectations for transition and next release Overview of Scrum & leadership in an Agile environment Identify a Scrum Product Owner – review role expectations Alignment on Project/Program purpose or vision Release goal (within context of Project/Program & Scrum transition) Once we have alignment on the Product Owner role and the Project V...

Research on the Scrum Product Owner role and compare and contrast to the traditional Product Manager role.  The Pragmatic Marketing framework may help to distinguish the PO role from the larger sphere of influence that a traditional product companies view of a product manager. Many Product Managers are familiar with the Pragmatic Marketing framework.  How does this framework interact with the Agile mind-set and the Scrum framework for product development? Here's a mash-up using the Pragmatic Marketing framework as a base map and the overlap of the Lean/Agile/Scrum view of the space.  ( Note: the PM framework link has nice interactive description pop ups of each cell in the framework. ) One of the best blog series I've found is by Roman Pichler - The Product Owner on One Page .  Don't let the title fool you, he has many articles linked on that one page.  Or you could buy his book:   Agile Product Management with Scrum . A list of respon...

I've never met a Scrum team that was highly performant (one commonly stated end goal) that did not have a highly engaged and participatory Product Owner.  I've also not met one person that can do all that that role requires for Scrum teams and the business.  Yes, Scrum's model simplification may mislead organizations into believing that the role is one and only one person.  It was designed this way for very valid reasons - to quit thrashing teams and increasing focus, also a form of limiting work in process, the concept of the PO as the one-ringable-neck responsible for the ROI of the team. However this simplification rarely addresses the needs of the total business.  Here's a great article on the expansion of this simplification. The Product Manager vs Product Owner   by John Peltier I've worked with numerous teams in my 10 years of guiding Agile transitions.  And reflecting upon all those teams, there success levels, the customer & te...

What do you do when the Product Solutions Director comes to you and suggest that she would like a product delivered within a 5% error on the delivery date? One suggestion is to run through a thought experiment with her.  For example:  Let's assume this is a project that will take about 6 months.  Let's base the schedule on a 180 day time line.  So you desire us to hit that 180 day target from six months away to within 5%.  OK that's 0.05 * 180 = 9 days.  Now is that a plus or minus 5% or a 5% range?  Or in absolute terms for this example do I have to be within 171 - 189 days (+/-5%) or within 176 - 185 days (5%).  So to continue this example, consider a team doing 2 week sprints.  This would equate to 12 - 13 sprints with one sprint error. by Mountain Goat Software But perhaps more important is what this one prime aspect of project success says about the other aspects of the project.  So lets try to balance the project success as...

How do you want to learn about Agile/Scrum?  This question is a 21st century problem.  Only a few years ago (last century) there was practically one way to learn a new skill or domain of knowledge - study via the printed page, e.g. buy a book.  But today we have alternative ways.  And yes they very well may be better at teaching than books.  Heck, I know a woman that learned English by watching cartoon network in Poland. So when people want to learn about Scrum (or Agile - they are not the same thing) I typically ask how they would like to learn.  Do you want a book, or a google search term, or perhaps a video?  Most people are responding to the question with a request for a video. Scrum Training Series (dot-com) Here's my best resource:   http://scrumtrainingseries.com .  The Scrum Training Series is 6 video cartoons that follow a new team into the daily activities and learning of a newly forming team with a Scrum Trainer (facilitato...

Pictures from a recent Product Owner Scrum Immersion workshop. Agenda for Scrum Immersion workshop Here are some Panoramas of the simulated sprints (also see photosynths ). what do you want to get out of a Scrum adoption by the team? Scrum Immersion simulation roadmap What we learned at the Global Sales Conference Clients - Wish list (that's not a backlog) Management "launches" a new team Project plan - simulation of 2 product releases What is Agile Release Planning Release Planning - a simulation Product Backlog (has Size & ranked for business value delivery) Sprint Planning (the What & the How) Sprint 1 - Bootstrap team's capacity to forecast unknown velocity A schematic of a 5 min. Simulated Sprint 15 sec. for a simulated Stand-up meeting The prime directive - DO IT! 5 min. for Simulation Sprint review meetings 2 sprints then Release 1 - demo with Cu...