Super Product Ownership Presentation at Agile2016

2. Richard Cheng
Bridget Dongarra
Super Product Ownership
Creating and Scaling Product Ownership in
the Federal Government

3. Bridget Dongarra
• Product Owner and Manager at OPM
• CSM, CSPO, PMP
• 14 years with USA Staffing
• 4 years of experience implementing
Agile in Government
• Bridget.dongarra@opm.gov
• www.linkedin.com/pub/bridget-dongarra/4/48

4. Richard Cheng - @RichardKCheng
• Agile trainer & coach
• CST, CSM, CSPO, CSP, SPC, PMP,
PMI-ACP
• Founder & executive committee
member of Agile Delivery for
Agencies, Programs, and Teams
(ADAPT)
• Experience in Federal and
commercial Agile transformations

5. “To modernize the federal retirement
system … the Office of Personnel
Management is taking a new tack that
focuses on incremental changes*.”
Quote from former OPM Director John Berry in an Interview with Federal News Radio
*http://www.federalnewsradio.com/86/1937813/OPM-Director-John-Berry-promises-big-changes-for-
hiring-retention-retirement

6. 08/14/16
The Federal Government’s job board
Manages accounts and profiles for all
Federal applicants
OPM’s Talent Acquisition System for
agencies
Primary interface for hiring managers and HR
professionals
OPM’s online assessment batteries
available for 75+ occupational series and
customized assessments for high-stakes
testing
6
Agile Programs @ OPM

7. USA Staffing
• Product
Owner
• Scrum Master
• Architect
• 4 BI
Developers
• 2 Cognos
Admins
• 3 Business
Analysts
• Product
Owner
• Scrum Master
• Architect
• 9 Developers
• 5 Business
Analysts
• Product
Owner
• Scrum Master
• 2 Architects
• 5 Developers
• 3 Business
Analysts
• Product
Owner
• Scrum Master
• Data
Warehouse
Architect
• 2 ETL
Developers
• 1 Technical
Analyst
• 1 Tester/
SQL Expert
• 1 BA
• Product
Owner
• Scrum Master
• Architect
• 9 Developers
• 3 Business
Analysts
USA Staffing Scrum Teams
-Super Product Owner-
• Communicati
ons Lead
• DBAs
• Sys Admins
• 508 Lead
• Security
Lead
• Test
Coordinator
• Testing
Support
• Automated
Testing
• Deployment
Team

8. Discussion
Discuss your thoughts on pros and cons
regarding USA Staffing’s scaled structure.

9. • Educate stakeholders about Agile
• Invest in communication resources
• Increase and frequency and depth of
communications for transparency
• Foster self-organization between teams
• Extend the Agile/Scrum process to include
customer and stakeholders
USA Staffing: Scaling Agile with Stakeholders

10. Discussion
1.Discuss patterns of effective Product
Ownership on Federal programs
2.Discuss struggles with Product Ownership in
Federal Programs

11. Feds as Product Owners!
Federal Product Ownership

12. Project Management vs.
Product Management

13. Qualities of a Good Product Owner
1. Bandwidth
2. Power
3. Knowledge
4. Interest
5. Direction

14. Product Owner Activities
Work
with the
Scrum
team
Work
outside
the
Scrum
team
•Work with SMEs,
Stakeholders,
Customers
•Understand needs
•Validate Product
Product
Backlog
Refinement
•Create PBIs
•Split PBIs
•Reorder the Product
Backlog
Product
Owner

15. Agile Value Proposition

16. Recap
Scale with Stakeholders
• Educate
• Communicate
• Be transparent
• Self-organize
• Extend Agile to
Stakeholders
Product Ownership
• Bandwidth
• Power
• Knowledge
• Interest
• Direction

17. Contact Information
Richard K Cheng
richard.cheng@excella.com
703-967-8620
http://www.excella.com
Twitter: @RichardKCheng
Bridget Dongarra
USA Staffing, US Office of Personnel
Management
202-553-1319/
Bridget.Dongarra@opm.gov

18. Agile and Federal Contracts

19. Agile and Federal Contracts

20. Acquisition / Procurement
Contracting professionals:
• Work early and often with the business
• Training and coaching
RFP/RFQ:
• State desired outcome, not SOW
• Smaller, shorter contracts
• Past experiences based on results, not knowledge
Governance
• Shift away from approval before start to acceptance when complete
• Govern outcomes and milestones, not work and sequencing