www.mironov.com 2

The Agile Product Manager /

Product Owner Dilemma

Rich Mironov 18 January 2012

www.mironov.com 3

About Rich Mironov

Veteran product manager/exec/strategist Business models, pricing, agile

Organizing product organizations

“What do customers want?”

5 startups, including as CEO/founder

Author of “The Art of Product Management” and Product Bytes blog

Founded Product Camp, chaired first product stage at annual Agile conference

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4

Agenda

What does a product manager do?

Agile overview

Agile and product managers/owners

Conclusions

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Disjoint Communities

Product Managers

Agile Community

Still nearly empty, very lonely

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What Does a Product Manager Do?

For commercial / revenue software…

PM drives delivery and market acceptance

of whole products

PM targets market segments, not

individual customers

For strategic internal development…

PM resolves competing priorities

PM drives acceptance and adoption

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Development Mktg & Sales

Executives

Product

Management

What Does a Product Manager Do?

market information, priorities,

requirements, roadmaps, MRDs,

personas, user stories…

software

strategy, forecasts, commitments, roadmaps, competitive intelligence

budgets, staff,

targets

Field input,

Market feedback

Segmentation, messages, benefits/features, pricing, qualification, demos…

Markets & Customers

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Product Management

Planning Horizons

Daily

Sprint

Strategy

Portfolio

Product

Release

Exec

PM

Dev

Team

2 wk

2-9 months

many months

years

many years

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The ideal candidate

for a tough job…

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Pragmatic Marketing® Framework

Pricing

Buy, Build or Partner

Business Plan

Product Profitability

Win/Loss Analysis

Distinctive Competence

Market Problems

Marketing Plan

Customer Acquisition

Customer Retention

Program Effectiveness

Buying Process

Buyer Personas

User Personas

Positioning

Product Portfolio

Market Definition

Distribution Strategy

Innovation Competitive Landscape

Technology Assessment

Lead Generation

Thought Leadership

Referrals & References

Launch Plan

Use Scenarios

Require- ments

Status Dashboard

Product Roadmap

Presentations & Demos

Event Support

“Special” Calls

Channel Support

Channel Training

Sales Process

Collateral

Sales Tools

Business Market Programs Planning Strategy Support Readiness Business Market Programs Planning Strategy Support Readiness

Dir, Prod Strategy Prod Mktg Mgr

Tech Prod Mgr

© 1993-2009 Pragmatic Marketing, Inc. All rights reserved

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Nature of PM Role

No natural sequence for PM Must work all aspects in parallel

Entire planning onion

Intensely interrupt-driven

Bottoms-up shapes top-down, top-down shapes bottoms-up

Product Management must provide strategy, judgment and integration as well as execution

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12

Agenda

What does a product manager do?

Agile overview

Agile and product managers/owners

Conclusions

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What is Agile?

Umbrella term for various software project

management and engineering practices

Iterative and collaborative

More frequent delivery of smaller increments

Building quality in, not adding it at the end

Goal of potentially shippable at every iteration

Active user involvement (or customer proxy)

Self-managing teams

Incremental process improvements

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Agile is an Umbrella

Scrum

Extreme

Programming

(XP)

Agile Project

Management

Framework

(APM)

Crystal

Methods

Dynamic

Systems

Development

Model (DSDM)

Rational

Unified

Process (RUP)

Feature Driven

Development

(FDD)

Lean

Development

Rapid

Application

Development

(RAD)

Agile Methods

Test Driven

Development

(TDD)

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Discussions about Agile…

Part philosophy and religion

Part process, tools, techniques, methods

Part organizational design

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Why Not Waterfall?

Waterfall projects rarely deliver

according to plan

Requirements and estimates

Coding and

unit test

System integration & QA

Operation and maintenance

Design

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Fixed Vs. Variable

Fixed

Estimated

Requirements

Time Resources

Time

Features

Plan

Driven

Value

Driven

The Plan creates cost/schedule estimates

Release themes and feature intent drive estimates

Waterfall Agile

Resources

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Agile’s Inner Loop

(Development)

After: Mike Cohn

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Agile’s Strategic Outer Loop

(PM)

•Markets

•Customers

•Biz Models

•Strategy

•Portfolios

•Funding

•Customers

•Sales

•Marketing

•Support

•Upgrades

•EOL/EOS

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Agenda

What does a product manager do?

Agile overview

Agile and product managers/owners

Conclusions

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Product Owner, Product Manager

Most agilists think about “product owners” Formal part of agile team

Needs to be physically present

Driving user stories and sub-iteration decisions

Showcases are primary method of customer input

Most product managers are not agilists Majority of work to deliver products (revenue) happens

outside Engineering

Interacts with markets directly, not filtered through Sales or Marketing

Servicing multiple inbound and outbound queues

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Product Owner’s Calendar

Borrowed from Catherine Connor, Rally

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Development Marketing/Sales

Customers

Executives

product

owner

“small p” product owner

priorities, requirements,

personas, user stories…

software

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•Pricing

•Buy, Build or Partner

•Business Plan

•Product Profitability

•Win/Loss Analysis

•Distinctive Competence

•Market Problems

•Marketing Plan

•Customer Acquisition

•Customer Retention

•Program Effectiveness

•Buying Process

•Buyer Personas

•User Personas

•Positioning

•Product Portfolio

•Market Definition

•Distribution Strategy

•Innovation •Competitive

Landscape

•Technology Assessment

•Lead Generation

•Thought Leadership

•Referrals & References

•Launch Plan

•Use Scenarios

•Require ments

•Status Dashboard

•Product Roadmap

•Presentations & Demos

•Event Support

•“Special” Calls

•Channel Support

•Channel Training

•Sales Process

•Collateral

•Sales Tools

•Business

•Market •Programs •Plannin

g •Strategy •Support

•Readiness

•Business

•Market •Programs •Plannin

g •Strategy •Support

•Readiness

Adapted Pragmatic

Marketing® Framework

product owner

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Product Manager Failure Modes

Solo Product Manager fails the agile team if…

Part-timer, not engaged with team

Lack of detail on stories

Stale backlog

Handwaving and bluster

Best of intentions, but pulled in too many directions

“Build what I meant”

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Product Owner Failure Modes

Solo Product Owner fails the market if…

Weak on market realities Pricing, packaging, selling,

upgrades, service models, discounting, competitive dynamics

Missing from outbound teams: Marketing, Sales, Support

Trades off company-wide strategy for product features

Confuses showcase customers with broader market

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PO/PM Organizational Map

GM - VP PM - VP Eng/CTO

product owners

Product Management Organization

more technical more market-focused

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Agenda

What does a product manager do?

Agile overview

Agile and product managers/owners

Conclusions

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Conclusions

Product management bridges

engineering, markets and

strategic planning

Agile’s focus is on improving

development processes

Success requires strongly technical but

market-oriented product managers

…who mentor product owners

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Contact Information

+1-650-315-7394

rich@mironov.com

www.mironov.com

@RichMironov

www.linkedin.com/in/richmironov

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Agile (Scrum) Model

Plan out 1-4 weeks work

Improve process

Review product

Create product needs

Meet daily

Strategic planning

After: Gabrielle Benefield