Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
If you need to plan more often than once a quarter, how do you know how to replan? Instead of incurring the time and cost when you bring everyone together, consider the Product Value Team. (In past writing and presentations, I’ve called this the Product Owner Value Team. I am trying to change my term …
Continue reading “Alternatives for Agile and Lean Roadmapping: Part 5, the Product Value Team”
One of my clients was trying—valiantly—to make their quarterly planning sessions work. They prepared, getting the big hotel room. They had plenty of supplies. The planning even went well. However, within two weeks, their plan had no relation to reality. That meant that for the next ten weeks, the product owners were “on their own.” …
In Part 1, I wrote about thinking in feature sets so everyone could see smaller chunks of work. (If you can see them, you might be able to plan for smaller and deliver smaller.) In Part 2, I suggested smaller rolling waves than an entire quarter (two months, or preferably one month) so people could …
Continue reading “Alternatives for Agile and Lean Roadmapping: Part 3, Flow-Based Roadmapping”
In Part 1, I wrote about thinking in feature sets and how to quickly create a feature set of—with any luck—smaller features. That’s because features don’t arrive at the same rate and they change in value, during a quarter. Because features change in value and because some feature sets need to deliver value on a more regular …
Many teams and organizations try to create one-quarter roadmaps. Here are the problems I see: Teams spend a ton of time estimating what they might do and then they select what will fit into a quarter. They feel or are asked to commit to all that work. The product managers and project portfolio managers depend on …
Continue reading “Alternatives for Agile and Lean Roadmapping: Part 1, Think in Feature Sets”
I’m almost at the end of the January Practical Product Owner workshop. One of the participants has a problem I’ve seen before. They have a backlog of work, and it’s all tasks. Not a story in sight. I understand how that happens. Here are some ways I’ve seen the tasks-not-stories problem occur: The technical people …
When I talk about Minimum Viable Products or Minimum Viable Experiments, people often tell me that their minimum is several weeks (or months) long. They can’t possibly release anything without doing a ton of work. I ask them questions, to see if they are talking about a Minimum Indispensable Feature Set or a Minimum Adoptable …
Continue reading “What’s Minimum: Thinking About Minimum Viable Experiments”
I have a new article up on projectmanagement.com, Continuous Agile Program Planning: Think Big, Plan Small. It’s about how to use rolling wave planning especially for an agile program. If you are a Product Owner or you are responsible for planning what when, and want to learn how to do this, join my PPO Workshop, starting …
I’m teaching a Product Owner workshop this week, and I had an insight about a Minimum Viable Product. AN MVP has to fulfill these criteria: Minimum means it’s the smallest chunk of value that allows us to build, measure, and learn. (Yes, Eric Ries’ loop) Viable means the actors/users can use it. Product means you …
I am leading the August workshop, Practical Product Ownership, starting next week. I still have room in that workshop. If you struggle with the role of the Product Owner, this workshop is for you. You will learn to deliver what the business needs, with your team. I hope you join us. If you are wondering …
Continue reading “Final Week to Register for the August Practical Product Owner Workshop”