man holding incandescent bulb

Tips and Tricks for the beginning Product Owner

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Envision a vision for a better PO

I want to point out that a vision is a necessity. The Product Owner is not going to do a good job without one. The product vision is not part of the Scrum framework. Nonetheless it is often mentioned in the Scrum literature as something that is a prerequisite.

In my experience, most companies lack a vision for their products. On rare occasions,  there existed a product vision, but it led a gloomy existance in a dusty drawer.

A good product vision is short, concise, broad, understandable and most important – engaging! With a good vision in place, everybody in the company will be aligned to the same goal.

Make it clear what you build, what your target audience is, what is the single uncompromiseable feature and what are other features that distinguish your product from your competitors’. Make every sentence and word matter, not longer than an abstract. The book from Geoffrey Moore “Crossing the Chasm” is a great source to learn how to write a vision statement properly.

Why is the product vision a vital tool and not just a toy for esoteric trainers? Imagine the perfect Product Owner. She has the authority to substitute the customer directly when facing the development team when a question arises. This can be accomplished if she has a very good relationship with the customer and knows his wishes, the product and the environment very well. – Even without a product vision.

Now imagine that this Product Owner has more than just one customer. She would need a split personality with a shared knowledge and understanding. And the stiuation gets even worse with three or more customers. And now keep in mind that building a product does not just mean to fulfill the customers‘ wishes. It is about building a product with many other stakeholders like development and marketing as well as juggling with internal requirements and restrictions.

The product vision is the shield for the Product Owner. Many dysfunctions in companies arise because there is no product vision. The common tragedy that follows is that many opportunistic moves undermine the product integrity. The product loses its identity. Nobody knows anymore what makes it stand out, what makes it different, marketing does not know what to advertise about the product, developers are not proud of their product anymore and stop taking care of it. In the end you have a bunch of people who try to hold it all together until there is no more money to squeeze out. The end of the product life cycle is reached. The vision is the tool to align the goals of all stakeholders and allow the Product Owner to challenge and also motivate the team.

So help yourself and the team and forge the tool you need to motivate and keep the integrity of the product instead of whining because it all falls apart.

Agile Strategy Map – Mapping at ACCUS

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Two weeks ago, Olaf and I had the pleasure of participating in the AgileCoachCamp US (#accus). We played our brand new Kanban Pizza Challenge on the Games Day, and hosted multiple open space sessions. One of my sessions got exceptionally good feedback, so I decided to provide a little more information on the agile42 Agile Strategy Map…

Dave in Full Flow

The opening question was how to effectively manage the work of the leadership or transition teams in large enterprise agile adoptions. The group quickly identified two scenarios: one in which the traditional backlog and task board approach worked extremely well; and one in which the backlog and task board lacked sufficient cohesion to lead an effective adoption, perhaps a result of lack of commitment or discipline.

In the latter case, we discussed the impact of using an Agile Strategy Map. This tool is used to visualize the strategy gap, the link between a corporate objective and the tactical actions taken to achieve that objective. As the following diagrams show, the Agile Strategy Map has 3 distinct components.

ASM Objective

First, the center of the map is the objective of the transition. Ideally, this objective will tie directly to delivery of the corporate goals or mission. In all cases, the objective needs to be clearly stated (rather than wooly management-speak). Preferably it describes what success would look like, to help bring clarity to the purpose of the transition and allow the team to measure their progress against the aims of the transition.

ASM Success Factors

Second, as a leadership team we elicit the possible success factors that, together, will contribute to the successful accomplishment of the objective. In this case, we want to keep in mind all the possible success factors, rather than aim to pick a limited number of critical success factors. Things will change, and part of the value of the Agile Strategy Map is that it visualizes a lot of choices that can be made to deliver on the objective, rather than only showing the current plan with a limited number of success factors.

ASM Full Map

Finally, for each possible success factor we want to brainstorm as many necessary conditions required to deliver on that single success factor. These actions and deliverables should be comprehensive, before we apply conditional thinking to bring the large number of possible actions to a minimum number of necessary conditions.

For more complex situations, any of these components can be considered hierarchically. For example, a single objective might be split into a further 2-3 objectives in different areas of expertise. In this situation, it may be possible that different objectives share some possible success factors.

The outcome is a visual representation of the many different conflicting and shifting priorities that have to be managed to deliver a complex, enterprise transition. The leadership or transition team can use the Agile Strategy Map as a starting place to prioritize actions, which are than managed through a traditional just-in-time backlog and task board.

The value of the exercise is less to do with addressing the underlying issues of commitment, discipline, or poor systemic prioritization (fire-fighting) and more to do with the value of a big visible chart that clearly outlines the connection between the actions that are taken and the achievement of the objective.

Thanks to all who joined the conversation, which was lively and informative.

 

 

 

Awesome Coach of the Week: Andrea Tomasini

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I’m pleased to put forward Andrea Tomasini as our Awesome Coach of the Week!

I’ve been fortunate to know and work with Andrea for over three years. First, we brought Andrea into our company as a consultant, having bought into his vision for how we could turn our product development team around. Andrea is a a passionate advocate for agile, and an intoxicating communicator. The workshops, training and coaching sessions often attract observers and impromptu visitors. People just have to find out what is going on? Why is everyone moving around, building lego cities, running back to their desks? Basically anything but sitting and taking notes. In two days, Andrea some how imparts a huge level of understanding, not just information, through shared discussion, experience and insight.

Having observed Andrea at close quarters, I see two key characteristics that make Andrea an awesome coach.


First, Andrea understands what makes a great coach, and lives this in everything he does. Andrea has an ability to build rapport and influence with executive leadership, to get his message across, and challenge entrenched thinking and hidden assumptions. At the same time, Andrea is at ease with the development teams, using his own practical experience to melt the ice and understand the situations unique to each company and team. Finally, Andrea has a deep understanding of and passion for agility, and this comes across in every response to a question and approach to a problem.

Second, Andrea has incredible energy and a presence about him. If you want things to move forward, get Andrea on your team. Andrea can certainly find time to relax and enjoy time with friends, and in addition brings his energy and presence to everything this does. He moves at a rapid pace, keeping people moving with him and achieving results quickly. At the same time, he channels this energy very effectively. Andrea understands the need to challenge and question, to advise and educate, to nurture and coach, and which situations to use each very different skill.

Since first meeting Andrea, I’ve changed companies and continents, and still work closely with Andrea. As with all the awesome coaches we honour, there is something remarkable inside that strives to express itself. So hats off to Andrea Tomasini, our Awesome Coach of the Week.