1. How can I “BE STRATEGIC” with all
these Agilists running around asking me
tactical questions?
Jeff Brantley
Enthiosys Senior Consultant
Contact me at:
jbrantley@enthiosys.com
jeffbrantley (twitter)
Motivated from Within®

3. About Enthiosys
Enthiosys is an Agile Product Management Consulting Firm

4. About Jeff Brantley
Senior Consultant at Enthiosys
An Agile Product Management Consulting firm QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Background
• Product Strategy. QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
• Product Mgmt Leadership,
• Product Marketing,
• Product Owner, QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
• Sales,
• Entrepreneurship
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
Special Expertise & Training
are needed to see this picture.
• Scrum, (CSM)
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
• Agile PM,
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
• Backlog Prioritization,
• Pragmatic Marketing,
• Innovation Games®,
• Agile Roadmapping

5. BE STRATEGIC! But Serve the Team?
• The reality is that Agile teams sometimes implement Agile only in
convenient bits and it causes more friction with PM than it should.
• Development is unwilling to commit to what will be delivered and
when, because "Hey, we're Agile! We will tell you what we're done
with when we're done with it!"
• Development does not want to look too far into the future because
"Hey, we're Agile! We have to focus on the immediate priorities!"
• Development is demanding you to create the backlog. Then
development complains at the crappy stories you wrote.
• The connection between what is strategically required in the
product vs what development is actually doing each day is just not
clear... for anyone!
• We will learn some tools and games to help regain your "strategic-
ness"!

6. Pragmatic-Expanded
Business Marketing
Positioning
Case Plan
Distinctive Market Sales Customer
Product Mgmt/Mkg
Pricing
Competence Sizing Process Acquisition Still responsible
For the whole
Market Product Buy, Build Market Customer
Research Performance or Partner Requirements Retention Grid!
Market Operational Product Product Launch
Problems Metrics Portfolio Roadmap Plan
Strategic
Tactical
Market Quantitative Product Product Program Sales Channel
Analysis Analysis Strategy Planning Strategy Readiness Support
Technology Win/Loss User Buyer Channel Presentations
Innovation
Assessment Analysis Personas Personas Training & Demos
Competitive Use Success Collateral & “Special”
Analysis Scenarios Stories Sales Tools Calls
Release Thought White Event
Milestones Leaders Papers Support
But Product owner role
User Stories
Adds Tactical Duties
Acceptance Lead Competitive Answer
Sprint Tests Generation Write-Up Desk
Planning Story
Acceptance

7. Context: Planning Time Horizons
Agile prescribes teams to think of planning in specific, smaller batch contexts
This aids the team in focusing attention where it is most effective
many years
Strategy
years
Exec Portfolio
many mons
Product
PM
Release 2-9 mon
Sprint 2 wk
Dev
Daily
Team
The center of this diagram is what we call the “mushy middle”, where
All manner of confusion usually exists in trying to achieve the strategy

8. The Agile Planning Flame
Adding Agile Roadmapping to your regular product planning activities
Will pull YOU (with support of your whole TEAM) upwards into strategic needs
Strategy
Planning Context: Portfolio
Agile Roadmapping
The key
Helps provide connection
Product Management
Planning Ceremony is Product Between the higher level
Strategy and the lower,
Agile Roadmapping
Tactical planning/delivery
Release
Sprint
Daily
This will lead to
More of what we all need!

10. Know
Don’t Know
Don’t Know
You Don’t Know
INNOVATION
LIVES HERE
Innovation Through Understanding®

11. Yup.
External
Collaboration
is Essential
Expanding the Innovation Horizon
IBM Global Business Services

12. Really… external collaboration
Internal Collaboration
External Collaboration – Twice as Much!

13. So?
• Who do you talk with?
• What do you talk about?
• Is it working for you?

14. If we’re so
AGILE,
where are
the
collaborating
customers?

15. Hippocratic Oath
•“First, do no harm.”
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

16. Hypocrisy Oath
•“No one spots hypocrisy
better than your children.”
• (Do what I say, not what I do) QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

17. Agile is an Umbrella
• Agile Project Management Framework (APM)
• Scrum
• Extreme Programming (XP)
• Crystal Methods
• Dynamic Systems Development Model (DSDM)
• Rational Unified Process (RUP)
• Feature Driven Development (FDD)
• Lean Development
• Rapid Application Development (RAD)

18. Truth or Hypocrisy? Agile Development
• We are told by Dev that Agile/Lean will:
• Increase our flexibility
• Decrease our risk
• Increase our quality
• Increase our responsiveness
• Increase our reliability
• Increase visibility into dev
• Decrease our re-work or technical debt
• Oh, by the way you as Product Owner must:
• Meet with us everyday and be available when we need you
• Build the backlog and prioritize it so we can take it and build
• Leave us alone (unless we need you)

19. Truth or Hypocrisy - Product
• I will make sure we are targeting the right user
• Our business model is sustainable and
profitable
• I know which segments (personas) care about
which benefits
• I can bring in customers to validate hypothesis
• I will not bow to the loudest voice (exec, sales,
customer, etc.) only
• I am doing ongoing customer / market
research to learn about …

20. Simple Financial Goals Are Best!
Existing Customers New Customers
More Stuff New Stuff Current Target New Segment
More utilization Modules, Upgrades
(seats, Gb, etc.) Renewals

21. agile development values
• individuals & interactions
over processes and tools
• working software
over lengthy documentation
• customer collaboration
over contract negotiation
• responding to change
over following a plan
“While there is value in items on the right,
agile teams value items on the left more”
- agile manifesto

22. Principles behind Agile Manifesto
We follow these principles:
• Our highest priority is to satisfy the customerthrough early and
continuous deliveryof valuable software.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile
processes harness change for the customer's competitive
advantage.
• Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a
couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
• Business people and developers must work together daily
throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the
environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job
done.
• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to
and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

23. Principles behind Agile Manifesto
We follow these principles:(2 of 2)
• Working software is the primary measure of progress.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development.
• The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a
constant pace indefinitely.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
enhances agility.
• Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is
essential.
• The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from
self-organizing teams.
• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more
effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

24. Example Roadmap Process
24

25. Estimates of Are Less Precise
When Time Horizons are Longer
Strategy
Portfolio
Product
Release
Sprint
Daily 1 – 2 Days
1 – 2 Months
1 – 2 QTRS
Note that as the time horizon increases the precision
of our projections decreases. We still plan.
25

26. Reporting Progress:
Velocity / Burn Down Charts
25
22
Velocity
20 20
19
18 18
17
15
13 13
10
9
5
4
0 450
It. 1 It. 2 It. 3 It. 4 It. 5 It. 6 It. 7 It. 8 It. 9 It. 10 It. 11 It. 12 It. 13 It. 14 It. 15 It. 16 It. 17 It. 18 It. 19 It. 20
Planned Velocity Actual Velocity 400
350
300
250
200
Burn Up 150
100
50
0
Start It. 1 It. 2 It. 3 It. 4 It. 5 It. 6 It. 7 It. 8 It. 9 It. 10It. 11It. 12It. 13It. 14It. 15It. 16It. 17It. 18It. 19It. 20
Completed Points Remaining Points Plan Total Points

27. Innovation Games can help!
Agile Market / Customer Research

28. Requirements
Product Usage
Future Products
Customer Needs
To understand…
Product Box
Buy a Feature
Innovation Games®
Me and My Shadow
Give Them A Hot Tub
Remember The Future
20/20 Vision
… then consider these games
Speed Boat
Spider Web
Show And Tell
Start Your Day
The Apprentice
Prune The Product Tree

29. Product Box
Activity:
Ask your customers to
imagine that they’re selling
your product at a tradeshow,
retail outlet, or public market.
Give them a few cardboard
boxes and ask them to literally
design a product box that they
would buy. The box should
have the key marketing
slogans that they find
Goal: interesting. When finished,
Identify the most pretend that you’re a skeptical
exciting, sellable prospect and ask your
features. customer to use their box to
sell your product to you.

30. Speed Boat
Activity:
Draw a boat on a whiteboard
or sheet of butcher paper.
You’d like the boat to really
move fast. Unfortunately, the
boat has a few anchors
holding it back. The boat is
your system, and the features
that your customers don’t like
are its anchors.
Customers write what they
don’t like on an anchor. They
Goal: can also estimate how much
Identify what faster the boat would go when
customers don’t like that anchor was cut.
(about your process Estimates of speed are really
or system). estimates of pain.

31. Prune The Product Tree
Activity:
Start by drawing a very large tree
on a whiteboard. Thick limbs
represent major areas of
functionality within your system.
The edge of the tree – its outermost
branches – represent the features
available in the current release.
Write potential new features on
several index cards, ideally shaped
as leaves. Ask your customers to
place desired features around the
Goal: tree. Observe how the tree gets
Build a product structured – does one branch get
according to your the bulk of the growth? Does an
plans. underutilized aspect become
stronger?

32. Spider Web
Activity:
Put the name of your product or
service in the center of a circle.
Ask your customers to draw other
products and services, ask them to
tell you when, how, and why these
are used. Ask them to draw lines
between the different products and
services.
As your customers reviews when
and where they user your offering,
Goal: you can capture the various inter-
Clarify the operating relationships that exist between
context for your the different products and service
products and that they use throughout the day.
services.

33. Start Your Day
Activity:
Ask your customer to describe the
daily, weekly, monthly , and yearly
events that are related to their use of
your product on pre-printed, poster-
sized calendars or a simple timeline
on poster paper. Ask them to
describe events in time frames
appropriate for your project. Special
event that are unique to an industry
or sector (like a conference), or days
Goal: in which everything goes horribly
Understand how and wrong and they’re looking for help.
when your customer While they’re doing this, be alert for
uses your product. how your product helps – or hinders
– their day.

34. Remember the Future
Activity:
Hand each of your customers a few
pieces of paper. Ask them to
imagine that it is sometime in the
future and that they’ve been using
your product almost continuously
between now and that future date
(month, year, whatever). Then ask
them to write down exactly what
your product will have done to make
them happy or successful or rich or
safe or secure or art – choose what
Goal: works best for your product.
Understand your Key point – ask “What will the
customer’s definition system have done?” not “What
of success. should the system do?”

35. Buy a Feature
Activity:
Create a list of features with an
estimated cost. The cost can be
development effort or actual cost
you intend to charge for the
feature. Customers buy features
that they want.
Features are priced high enough
that no singe customer can buy the
features. This helps motivate
customers to negotiate between
Goal: themselves as to which features
Prioritize features. are most important. Observation of
this negotiation provides great
insight into what customers are
willing to pay for.

36. Show and Tell
Activity:
Ask your customers to bring
examples of artifacts created or
modified by your product or service.
Ask them to tell you why these
artifacts are important, and when
and how they’re used.
Pay careful attention to anything
that surprises you – artifacts you
Goal: expected them to create or modify
Identify the most that they have ignored, artifacts that
important artifacts aren’t used, or artifacts used in
created by your unexpected ways.
product.

37. Me and My Shadow
Activity:
Shadow your customer while they
use your product or service.
Literally. Sit next to them and watch
what they do. Periodically ask them
“Why are you doing that?” and
“What are you thinking?” Take along
a camera or camcorder and record
key activities. Ask for copies of
important artifacts created or used
Goal: by your customer while they are
Identify your doing the work.
customer’s hidden
needs.

38. Give Them A Hot Tub
Activity:
Write several features on note cards,
one feature per card. Include several
completely outrageous features. If
you’re making a portable MP3
player, try adding features like
“heats coffee”, “cracks concrete” or
“conditions dog hair”. If you’re
making a system that manages
payroll, try adding features like
“plans family reunions” or
Goal: “refinishes wooden floors”. If you’re
Use outrageous building an office building, add a hot
features to discover tub in the lobby. Observe what
hidden happens with a customer uncovers
breakthroughs. one of these outrageous features.

39. 20/20 Vision
Activity:
When you’re getting fitted for
glasses, your optometrist will often
ask you to compare between two
potential lenses by alternately
showing each of them.
Start by writing one feature each on
large index cards. Shuffle the pile
and put them face down. Take the
first one form the top and put it on
the wall. Take the next one and ask
your customers if it is more or less
Goal: important than the one on the wall.
Prioritize features. Place it above or below, depending
on its relative importance. Repeat
this with all of your feature cards.

40. The Apprentice
Activity:
Ask your engineers and product
developers to perform the “work” of
the system that they are building. If
they’re building a new data entry
system, have them do the work of the
current data entry operators. If
they’re building workflow
management software for furniture
delivery people, have them deliver
furniture. If they’re building a system
to analyze vehicle performance data,
Goal: ask them to change the oil in the car.
Create empathy for They gain knowledge of the customer
the customer experience and some degree of
experience. empathy for the real problem that
your customer is trying to solve.

41. My Worst Nightmare
Activity:
Provide participants with a large sheet of paper and markers
or other office supplies. Ask them to imagine their "worst
nightmare" related to the product or service that you're
researching. For example, suppose you're researching
preferences in home repair services. In this case, you'd ask
homeowners to draw a caricature of their "worst nightmare"
handyman. Of course, their "worst nightmare" doesn’t have
to be an actual individual. It could be simply a collection of
characteristics or attributes. After the illustrations are
complete, ask participants to present their “worst
nightmare” to the group.
Goal:
Encourage the group to listen for descriptions of
Discover
positive/negative attributes or behaviors and surprising
hidden and/or
comments. If the "worst nightmare" is a person, consider
unconsidered
how they frame roles and responsibilities. Besides allowing
worst-case
for psychological venting, the game’s structure and
scenarios
metaphor will produce key insights and pertinent issues so
that you can create sweet dreams for your customers.

42. Categorizing the Games

43. Innovation Games Organized
Degree of Open-Ended Exploration

44. Innovation Games Organized
Degree of Scalability

45. Innovation Games Organized
Time-Frame of Action

46. Innovation Games Organized
Degree of Customer Preparation

47. Innovation Games Organized
Degree of Market Preparation

48. Innovation Games Organized
Degree of Physical Preparation

49. When You’re Not Sure, Start Here
Use This To
Game… Understand…
Speed Boat What you need to improve
Buy a Feature What features you need to build next
Product Box New possibilities
Spider Web How / where your product fits in

50. Thanks… Questions?
• Thank you for your time!
• jbrantley@enthiosys.com
• (512) 426-4830
• See Also:
• www.enthiosys.com/problems-we-solve/agile-roadmaps/
• www.innovationgames.com