APLN Product Roadmap Talk

A Conversation About
Agile Product Roadmaps

Presented to BayAPLN
March 17th, 2009

© 2009, Enthiosys Inc. All rights reserved. www.enthiosys.com or 650.528.4000
1

Tonight's Flow

• I talk about me
• I talk about Enthiosys
• I talk about gifts for you
• We talk about product roadmaps
• We talk about tonight’s task
• You do tonight’s task
• You get gifts

2

Scott Gilbert

• President of Enthiosys and Agile practice lead
– Satisfy customers, Manage partnerships, Run the office
– Delivered several major software releases using Agile
– Coached 12’s of teams, through 100’s of sprints
– Blessed by Scrum Alliance with CSM, CPO & CSP
• Helped start-ups raise $11M in venture capital
• Founding member of Inferscape, Inc. a predictive
analytics software company in the CRM space
• BearingPoint’s High Technology Strategy Practice
3

Enthiosys Overview

Just the Basics

4

Enthiosys, Inc.

• An Agile product management consulting firm
founded in 2003 by Luke Hohmann.

• We help clients achieve business agility:
delivering great results, not just great software.

• Services designed to improve products,
processes and the people who drive them.
5

A Set of Services

continuous customer collaboration to understand complex
markets and provide input throughout the development process

agile transformation of your entire company to leverage the
power of Agile product development and management

pricing, licensing and creation of business models to capture
the full value of your solutions

product roadmaps for individual products and portfolios with
processes and best practices to sustain them over time

service design to improve the customer experience by
delivering a whole product solution and additional revenue

6

Designed for Business Agility

7

Enthiosys Team

• 20 F/T and P/T consultants
– Luke Hohmann, Founder/CEO
– Scott Gilbert, President
– Rich Mironov, CMO
– Dan O’Leary, CTO
• Thought leaders
– 4 books, monthly newsletter, Agile blog
– Frequent webinar and conference speakers
– Leaders in our industry associations

8

Our Experience Covers…

• Software solutions including single user,
enterprise, infrastructure, consumer, web
• Hardware platforms as embedded systems,
consumer electronics, industrial, on-chip
• Roles as product managers, developers,
marketers, sales, service and support
• All levels of management in public, private, and
venture-backed companies

9

Engagement Types

• Collaboration
– We jointly define goal, creating results with client
• Projects
– Customer defines goal, we deliver a result to client
• Interim management
– Enthiosys experts as product managers or executives
• Training
– Mostly private but some public classes

10

Selected Clients

11

Gifts for You

Cesar will distribute at the end

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The Gifts

• Left over P-Camp Schwag
• The old book
• The practical book
• The fun book
• The new book
• The good book

13

Agile Product Roadmaps

Let’s Talk About Em’

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Agile Planning Is…

• About participating in the infinite game
• Top down, bottoms up and continuous
• Emergent yet deterministic
• About making/reversing decisions
• Focused on the future while acting in
the present
• About the planning not the plan
15

Planning Time Horizons

Strategy 5+ Years

Exec’s Portfolio 3-5 Years

Product 18-24 Months

PM’s Release 2-9 Months

Sprint 2-4 Weeks

Dev’s Daily

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Connects to and Correlates with
the Backlog

Sprint
INVEST

Release
Epics, Stories, Use
Cases, Themes

Roadmap
Epics, Features, Big Ideas

Inspired by Mike Cohn 17

Roadmaps are Scary

• Forces you to articulate what
you are not going to build

• Makes you commit to an
uncertain future

18

Benefits of a Roadmap

• Roadmaps can identify and clarify both the
tactical and strategic intent of your product
• Internally:
– Becomes a filter for prioritizing development activities
– Builds consensus around direction
– Ensures the “ship is headed in the right direction”
– Avoids the “last/loudest” priority problem

• Externally:
– Provides customers with access to near-term commitments and
long term “points of view”
– Binds customers to your company (especially in B2B markets)
19

Typically See Feature Wish Lists

June 09 Sept 09 Dec 09 Mar 10 June 10

Idaho
Thundercloud
Version 4.0
Version 3.01 Jayko SaaS Offering
Security Patch Extra fast install
Better Scalability Comprehensive Platforms
Client Access SDK Version 3.2 Multi-site Collaboration
New platform support Oracle Support
Security Management
Scalability enhancements
Usability improvements
Better Integration*
20

Typical Roadmap Failures

• No visible logic
• Created unilaterally
– Lack of buy-in
– Poor technical and market inputs
• No plan for internal or external
sharing

21

A Roadmap Should Be…

• A living internal planning document designed to
answer strategic questions such as:
– Who are my markets/segments?
– What do they care about?
– When should I serve them?
– What factors must I consider?
– What technologies / systems can I leverage?
– How should I adjust my plans and goals relative to the
answers to these and possibly other questions?

22

A Simple Template
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Architecture & Support
What technology
Linux should we use? Biometrics
Systems
auto send Physical
Features & supplies Security
Benefits Saves time Audit Trails
& money

Markets &
Users Small Office Enterprise

Events &
Rhythms
23

Build it Iteratively

Features &
Benefits

Events & Architecture &
Rhythms Systems

Markets &
Users

24

Look for A Release Window

Taken by this Flickr guy 25

A More Complex Template
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Support Biometrics
Architecture Linux
Managed
Capabilities services

auto send Physical
Features supplies Security

Saves time Audit Trails
Benefits & money

Markets Small Office Enterprise

Events &
Rhythms

Schedule
26

Still Build it Iteratively

Markets & Events &
Users Rhythms

Capabilities Benefits

Schedule
Architecture &
Systems
Features

27

Look for A Release Window

Same picture, same guy 28

A Low-Tech Approach to Start

• Speeds collaboration
• Easy to change
• Can be transcribed into
tools for easy digital
sharing once the plan
settles

29

Market Events & Rhythms

• These are things that are knowable but out of
your direct control.
• However, you might be able to influence them.

• Market events occur on a one time basis
• Example: Regulatory-related dates
• Market rhythms occur on a recurring basis
• Example: Industry conferences
30

Markets & Users

• Provide short name and possibly some short
description or segmentation characteristics
• These can be very simple. You can attach
common Personas found in each segment
• Focus on the markets this product serves
• Example: Small Office
• < 75 employees
• Limited CapEx budgets
• Need support and services
• Buy from trusted referrals
31

Features & Benefits

• Features
– Only list major features that motivate customers to
take the release / pay you $
• Benefits
– Describe in business terms what benefits each feature
will deliver to the customer or to the company
• Reduce costs, Avoid costs, Increase revenue

32

Architecture & Systems

• Typically just the large pieces
– Required product technologies
– Required back-office or operational systems
• Break “development” into exploration and proof of
concepts. Have them span several quarters
• Example: VoiceXML for voice service features
• Example: Billing and accounting systems to
support foreign currencies

33

Capabilities

• Major components of the application that enable
multiple features
• Not all systems will have these, so don’t force it
• Example: Notification Engine
– Allows users to send schedule, event, or conditional
based notifications via any communication channel.

34

Schedule

• Internal events & rhythms
• Knowable, limited control, possible to influence
• Holidays & vacations
• Customer commitments
• Product dependencies
• Other SDLC milestones
• Example: Quarterly earnings calls
• Example: Annual peer reviews
35

Example Process

36

Example Interim Result

37

Example Final Result

38

Other Benefits Include

Team Collaboration Builds Trust

39

Some Good Practices

• Extended in-person working sessions
– Start by scheduling two session 1 month apart
– Need time to research issues that come out of first
• Participation by key constituents
– Product Management, Engineering, Marketing
– Document participants that created each version
• Should align with business plan & model
• Quarterly reviews and updates to keep alignment

40

Some More Better Practices

• Use versions & dates
• Document who helped create each version
• Document key assumptions, facts & decisions
• Use legends to make it walk up easy to
understand. Colors, shapes, etc.
• Use corporate rules to make it walk up easy to
understand. 6+ months is uncommitted, no selling
• Have clear distribution and communication plan
• Easy to say, hard to do…consistently!
41

A Few Agile Characteristics

• Built by x-functional teams, hopefully face to face
• Takes an iterative approach
• Makes a great information radiator to promote
transparency and communication
• Helps identify the release time box or window
• Provides good opportunity for initial prioritization
• Maps to the User Story pattern (who, what, why)
• Makes architecture explicit in planning and
always gives technologists an early voice
42

Now You Go

Shape the Future of BayAPLN

43

It’s A Flexible Concept

• We use it for our company planning
– http://www.enthiosys.com/insights-tools/we-roadmap

44

Our Proposed Template

• Constituents – Our market segments
• Services & Benefits – What we do for the above
and what they get from it
• Platform – This is our infrastructure website, etc.
• Events & Rhythms – Other things that happen
• People – Folks who make all of the above real
• Time – 1 calendar year, in quarters starts in April

45

Supplemental Info on Flip Charts

• Decisions
• Assumptions
• Action Items
• Your name & contact info (optional)

46

Our Process

1. Self organize into groups at one of the stations
2. Cesar will provide the vision and inspiration
3. You will have XX minutes to iterate through
your plan and capture supplemental information
• You can pick a leader to facilitate
• You can do a group splat, then rationalize
4. You can change the template (time & rows)
5. You can capture other supplemental info
6. We will de-brief each map at the end
47

Cesar Will Give You Gifts

48

Contact Information

Enthiosys, Inc.
615 National Ave., Suite 220
Mountain View, CA 94043
650.528.4000 Office
650.528.4004 Fax
follow us at www.twitter.com/Enthiosys
follow me at www.twitter.com/AgileProductMgr

www.enthiosys.com/insights-tools for Books, Bytes, Blogs
www.InnovationGames.com for Innovation Games Online

49

Extra Topics

50

Roadmap of Roadmaps

Sometimes you want to see
the forest and the trees.

51

Roadmap of Roadmaps

• A look at a portfolio of products over the same
time period
• Identify possible synergies or conflicts
• Plan for roll-outs of product bundles / lines
• Creates a strategic view that can be driven back
down to individual products.

52

Building a Roadmap of Roadmaps

• Slightly different set of participants
– PM Directors, Senior Architects, Business Unit
Managers, other senior stakeholders
• Roll up individual roadmaps
– Show releases of all products w/ major features
– Architecture may include systems & infrastructure
• Adjust based on decisions or observations
• Changes roll back down to individual products

53

Scenario Planning With Roadmaps

Predicting the future is hard
but it can’t hurt to try.

54

Exploring Possible Futures

• Scenarios are descriptive narratives of plausible
alternative futures.
• Useful for:
– Identifying potential opportunities / threats
– Limiting “business as usual in the future” behavior
– Testing roadmaps against various possible futures
– Understanding how and when to react to changes
– Staying focused on the likely case while building 1st
drafts of primary / current roadmaps

55

Roadmapping for Scenarios
Primary Roadmap Roadmap Scenario A
Scenario A
1. This
2. That
3. The Other
Release Release 4. Then Release Release
A B 5. Finally…. A B

Primary Roadmap Roadmap Scenario B
Scenario B
1. This
2. That
3. The Other
Release
A
Release
B
4. Then Release
A
5. Finally….
56

Generating Useful Scenarios

• Articulate questions that will have long term
consequences.
• Create a detailed scenario (story) to illustrate the
risk/change
• Explore alternative roadmaps to address
scenarios
• Map the decision point: what events should
trigger adoption of alternative strategy?

57

Example Scenario Questions

• What if we lost our largest customer?
• What if the market demands the product early?
• What if labor unions curb outsourcing?
• What if regulatory changes impact us?
• What if we acquire one or more competitors?
• What if we expand internationally?

58

References & Influences

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On-Line Agile Resources

Agile Alliance: http://www.agilealliance.org/
Scrum Alliance: http://www.scrumalliance.org/
Agile Project Leadership Network: http://www.apln.org/
Agile Journal: http://www.agilejournal.com
Enthiosys Blog Roll: http://www.enthiosys.com/
Agile Manifesto: http://agilemanifesto.org/

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