In just a few years, the Lean Startup movement has gained influence by promoting a powerful but simple agile product management toolset—one that complements agile software development approaches such as Scrum and kanban. This presentation explores the tools and techniques product owners at startup companies and others are employing today for project visioning, experimental design, evaluating new feature impact, prototyping, split testing, and gaining early customer feedback.
2. Meet the Presenter
Raj Indugula
• VP of Technology, LitheSpeed, LLC
• Enterprise application development
background (17 years)
• 10 years of Agile experience
• Currently engaged with an Agile
transformation initiative in the federal
space
2
5. Risks of Agile
1. Backlog items are not always
validated against true end-
user needs
2. Critical reliance on a fallible
Product Owner
3. Lack of clear advice on how
and when to “pivot”
4. IT bias… fall back on what
we know: build, build, build
5
6. Lean Startup Movement – A Brief History
• Steve Blank coined “customer discovery”
in the book “Four Steps to the Epiphany”
• Steve funded Eric Ries’s startup company
IMVU in 2004
• In 2010, Alex Osterwalder
wrote “Business Model
Generation”
• In 2011, Eric wrote “The Lean
Startup”
6
7. Lean Discovery + Agile Delivery Illustrated
Holis'c
Discovery
List
Market,
Customer,
Product
risks
Illustrate
business
model/case
Risk-‐driven
Product
Backlog
Priori'ze
by
riskiest
assump'on
Include
valida'on
mechanisms
Exploratory
Sprints
Team
intercepts
users
Team
helps
design
experiments
Data-‐driven
Sprint
Review
Review
experiment
results
Pivot,
Persevere,
Punt
Scan
for
new
opportuni'es
Valida'ng
Product
Increment
Measure
key
usage
paJerns
Focus
MVP
on
early
adopters
DISCOVERY
9. Itera've
Risk
Management
• Are we solving a substantial problem?
• What are our technical challenges?
Product
Risk
• Who are our ideal customers?
• Do we understand their
needs?
Customer
Risk
• Do we have a viable
market niche?
• Are we better than
the competition?
Market
Risk
9
10. Problem Interview
Talk with early adopters
to learn whether they
share your perception of
the problem.
This is a sample interview
script to validate & rank
problems with users.
10
Thanks to Ash Maurya, author of Running Lean for this format:
http://www.runningleanhq.com/
11. Discovering Customer Needs
[In]validate your assumptions by:
11
• Interviewing users
• Observing users in their native
environments
• Manually simulating your
system (“concierge”)
• Rapid usability testing
• Tracking behavior of customer
cohorts (related groups)
12. Validation Board for Experimentation
12 hJps://www.leanstartupmachine.com/valida'onboard/
Plan and track experiments to test your assumptions about customers,
problems & solutions. Pivot based upon the results that you see.
13. Adjusting the Plan
Based on what you learn, you might:
• Stick to the plan
• Target another customer group
• Target a different need
• Expand or contract feature focus
• Change platforms or architecture
• Change channels
• Kill the idea entirely
Persevere, pivot or punt.
13
14. Lean
Canvas
to
draQ
your
Business
Model
Thanks
to
Ash
Maurya,
Leanstack.com
14
Draft your business case in a simple, single-page format, and adjust
based upon the results of your interviews, prototypes and releases.
15. Example
Lean
Canvas
for
Sensei
Sensei
is
an
Agile
retrospecDve
tool
by
LitheSpeed.
www.senseitool.com
16. Risk-Driven Product Backlog
Challenging & testing your assumptions
Holis'c
Discovery
Risk-‐driven
Product
Backlog
Priori'ze
by
riskiest
assump'on
Include
valida'on
mechanisms
Exploratory
Sprints
Data-‐driven
Sprint
Review
Valida'ng
Product
Increment
17. The
MVP
A “Minimum Viable Product” might be:
• Learning: Onsite observation, fake menus, ads
• Pitching: Preorders, comparisons, joint design
• Experiencing: Concierge, prototypes
Early releases focus on quickly &
cheaply testing ideas.
Later
releases
focus
on
scaling.
17
18. Unbounce
for
Landing
Pages
You can create dynamic landing pages that help you tune your pitch
and garner pre-orders with tools like Unbounce.
19. MVP
Pivot
Key
DifferenDators
Flexibility
&
Safety
Scaling
&
OpDmizaDon
Story
A1
A2
A3
B1
B2
C1
C2
C3
D1
D1
D2
B3
Epic
1
Epic
2
Key
Ac'vity
Major
Component
Plan
Releases
&
Pivots
with
a
Story
Map
19
20. Exploratory Sprints
Quick, cheap ways to validate your approach
Holis'c
Discovery
Risk-‐driven
Product
Backlog
Exploratory
Sprints
Team
intercepts
users
Team
helps
design
experiments
Data-‐driven
Sprint
Review
Valida'ng
Product
Increment
21. Concierge
to
Test
without
Coding
A manual simulation of your product or service.
22. Balsamiq
Mockups
for
Low-‐Fi
Prototyping
hJp://balsamiq.com/products/mockups/
Test layouts and flows without coding or graphic design.
23. Data-Driven Sprint Review
Using data to drive decisions
Holis'c
Discovery
Risk-‐driven
Product
Backlog
Exploratory
Sprints
Data-‐driven
Sprint
Review
Review
experiment
results
Pivot,
Persevere,
Punt
Scan
for
new
opportuni'es
Valida'ng
Product
Increment
24. Lean
Canvas
as
Dynamic
Dashboard
24
Think
of
your
project
as
a
set
of
small
experiments.
The
results
of
these
experiments
should
be
simply
stated
and
reviewed
regularly
to
guide
decisions
about
product
direc'on.
Thanks
to
Ash
Maurya,
author
of
Running
Lean:
hJp://www.runningleanhq.com/
25. “Pirate”
Metrics
&
Customer
Funnels
25
AcquisiDon
AcDvaDon
RetenDon
Revenue
Referral
How many users are interested and find you?
Preorders, signups, ad responses
How is their experience when they do?
Successful runs through key use case
Do they stick around for the long run?
30, 60, 90 day retention by cohort
Do they pay?
Ratio of paying users or ROI
Do they tell their friends?
Successful recommendations
Thanks to Dave McClure
http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-version
26. Validating Product Increment
Analyzing & evolving your production system
Holis'c
Discovery
Risk-‐driven
Product
Backlog
Exploratory
Sprints
Data-‐driven
Sprint
Review
Valida'ng
Product
Increment
Measure
key
usage
paJerns
Focus
MVP
on
early
adopters
27. Quan'ta've
A/B
&
MulDvariate
TesDng
Split (A/B) testing randomly presents users with competing
versions of specific application pages and features.
• See what works best by running parallel experiments
• Choose the winning option after appropriate time
Header
Sign
up
form
Demo
movie
Story
Header
Sign
up
form
Demo
movie
Story
58%
of
visitors
signed
up
35%
of
visitors
signed
up
A
B
28. A/B
Tes'ng
Sensei
with
OpDmizely
We
found
a
60%
increase
in
registraDons
just
from
adding
the
term
“distributed
teams”
to
our
landing
page.
29. Zopim
Live
Chat
We
envisioned
live
chat
to
be
largely
a
help
tool,
but
it
ended
up
connecDng
us
with
our
most
passionate
early
adopters.
31. AddiDonal
Learning
Opportuni'es
• Lean Startup in the Enterprise Meetup
Monthly at LitheSpeed office in Herndon, VA
• Lean Startup Machine
Travels nationwide
• Lean Startup Conference
Annually in San Francisco
• Lean + Agile Practitioner’s Forum
Coming soon!
32. Reading
List
–
Lean
Agile
Innova'on
• Running Lean – Maurya
• Essential Scrum – Rubin
• The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer
Development – Vlaskovits
• The Lean Startup – Ries
• Discover to Deliver – Gottesdiener
• The Other Side of Innovation – Govindarajan
• Four Steps to the Ephiphany – Blank
• Business Model Generation – Osterwalder
33. Contact Us for Further Information
33
Raj Indugula
LitheSpeed
raj.indugula@lithespeed.com
On the Web:
http://www.lithespeed.com
I only wish I had read this book when I started my career in
software product management, or even better yet, when I was
given my first project to manage. In addition to providing an
excellent handbook for managing with agile software
development methodologies, Managing Agile Projects offers a
guide to more effective project management in many business
settings.
John P. Barnes, former Vice President of Product Management at
Emergis, Inc.