I’m working on finishing a talk based on a recent Pragmatic Manager newsletter: Three Tips to Focus to Deliver Better Products Faster. I wrote that newsletter because I’d given several recent talks where the audience told me their “agile” teams could not collaborate. Those “teams” were component teams and they were not near each other. […]
It must be the season for “research” on social networks. Just this past week, I received several requests to share my stories with researchers—as if my experience was research. Some of these researchers are graduate students. Others are consultants. All of them share these goals: They want to write a substantial document, incorporating their research.
Every minute, it seems as if someone is talking about how great ChatGPT is. It’s going to revolutionize the world! I agree— I am sure AI will revolutionize the world. At some point. But I think it’s going to remove all those busy-work jobs, not the jobs where we, as humans, offer value. Here’s a
I’m reviewing experience report proposals for the XP 2023 conference. While I see potential in many of these proposals, I don’t see enough proposals that make me say, “Yes! I want to read this report! And see the speaker!” (Yes, I react in exclamation marks when I read a terrific proposal.) Experience reports allow us
We use product roadmaps to see where we want to go and the options we might take to get there. Yet, so many of our roadmaps offer only a single and certain destination. If we don’t see options, we reduce our innovation decision points—and possibly disappoint our customers. Worse, we create products that don’t fulfill
In Part 1, I said that product roadmaps are not like car roadmaps. But even car roadmaps showed places of interest—options—for the driver and passengers. If I stretch that analogy a little, managers need to see where we are predictable for the next bit of time, and the options we see for the future. We
In Part 1, I said that customers need a different kind of roadmap than teams do. Teams need the focusing details now and a way to look forward. But, depending on where your product is in the market, your customers might want or need different information. Let’s start there. One thing to remember: you might
As I said in Part 1, teams use backlogs and roadmaps to know what’s now and what’s next. Teams use backlogs for the day-to-day tactical decisions. And when teams can see what’s next, they can keep the strategic decisions in mind. What do teams need to know about the product now to focus their work?
Several of my clients have various roadmap problems. They want a single product roadmap to serve all these purposes: Focus the team’s work for this specific product for the short term. That includes some look-ahead to see the next bit of upcoming work when the team has more capacity. Show customers where the company thinks
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