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Dual Track Agile @ Target
How re-organizing our agile process led to happier product owners, designers and
engineers (and better products!)
Jimi Van GuilderPrincipal Product Owner – ”Help me fix it” Experience GroupTP3, [email protected]
Product Owner• 7 years @ Target• Worked on android app hamburger as a Contractor• Web embed proxy of desktop checkout on apps• Mobile Web• Adaptive Mobile Web
• Cart & Checkout• Desktop Adaptive & Web• React - Post Purchase + Capability w/ G3PO• Web + Apps• Self taught mediocre artist with Comp Sci and Biz minor
Complex Environment• Engineers in Bangalore• Engineers in MPLS• UX in MPLS• Partners in various buildings, with intersecting priorities• Need quick Sprint Planning• Need a digital, sharable solution • Need portable artifacts• Working on existing product with multiple dependencies
The Team
Lead engineer
Engineering
Product Owner Designer Researcher
Scrummaster
Data Scientist
Director
The Core Team
Lead engineer
Engineering
Product Owner Designer
“Single Track”
• Product owner has an idea or intake from another part of the business• Hands off requirements to a designer• Designer creates annotated wireframes• Hands off wireframes to the Engineer• Engineer builds and releases
“Single Track”• 3 week sprints• Discovery “Happens”• Engineering not
formally involved• Long sprint meetings• Poorly defined, not
well understood backlog
Everything’s not awesome…
But what is Discovery?• The process of validating our ideas the fastest, cheapest way
possible.• What is the problem we are trying to solve?• How should the guest experience work to best solve it?• Can it be built to the design spec?• How will we know it fixed the problem?
“The most expensive way to test your idea is to build production quality software” – Jeff Patton
How do we do ‘Discovery’?Various tools are used to validate if the idea will solve the problem• Quantitative
• AB Test with live guests• Large scale surveys• Fake Door Tests, fake buttons
• Qualitative• Paper Prototypes• Digital Prototypes• Competitive User Testing (Usertesting.com)• Meet with guests with questions
• Jobs to be Done• Different talk!
Document the Idea that we think will solve the problemWhat are the biggest questions?
Time BoxedFast Learning
What do we know
or assume?
Validated Info
Build test plan
Test!
?i
Do it again…
Dual Track
• Everyone brings ideas• Collaboratively define requirements• Validate design together• Engineers participates and know what
is coming
Dual TrackAllows for continuous discovery, and engages engineering at the right times.
• “… we work with developers very closely through design and development. Although the dual tracks depicted seem separate, in reality, designers need to communicate every day with developers.”
Desiree Sy - Adapting Usability Investigations for Agile User-centered Design (2007).
Development Discovery
Development Discovery
Development Discovery
Development Discovery
project in (HMGMS) AND (component != Discovery OR component is EMPTY) ORDER BY Rank ASC
Discovery
Development
Discovery
Development
Dual Track Ceremonies• Stand Up• Short Sprint Planning – every 2 weeks• Discovery share outs – every 1 week• Story Refinement – every 1 week• Sprint Review/Demo – every 2 weeks• Retrospective – every 4 weeks
How does it work with OKRs?Starts with guest and leadership priorities, and gets more specific.
Leader/Guest Priority in Q3 2018: Reduce Contacts Per Order from 10% to 9%
My teams OKR topic: ‘Help Finding Tracking Number’ contact bucket
Key ResultReduce Help finding tracking number contacts from 1000 per week to 500 per week.
Discovery needed:How can we better help guests find their tracking number?
OUTPUT < OUTCOMES
Discovery – Tracking Number
Discovery – Tracking Number
Discovery – Tracking Number
Key Result
OUTPUT < OUTCOMES
Would this be possible without Dual Track agile?
• Accelerated idea validation• Filled backlog with stories focused on outcomes• Moved quick enough to see outcomes in Q3• Designer + Engineering communication• Celebrating outcomes is more fun than celebrating output!
Team Feedback - Designer• I used to have to play “telephone”. I would design something and write up
EVERY annotation I could think of. I would try to anticipate questions and concerns. • Inevitably, there would still be things that came up as the design entered the
engineering phase. I never had a direct connection to the engineers, however, and I would be far along on the next problem at this point. • I would hear about questions from engineering 2nd hand from a PO, and then I
would have to provide additional direction to that PO to later hand-off to an engineer that night or early the next morning. • In a dual track world, I have had direct connections to engineers in a way that
allows us to discover and build products and features together. Even if the engineers on my team are 13.5 hours away, the flood gates of communication are open and we use slack and other tools to connect fluidly. • We’re empowered and encouraged to do this work together, rather than
respecting strict hand-offs.
Team Feedback – Engineering• We used to see stories we would need to build for the first time in sprint
planning. Often times we would not know the value and just built it.• We’d commit to the story but immediately have lots of questions and often
would expose a blocker to why it could not be built the way it was designed. Most of those scenarios could have been easily avoided.• The engineers are now engaged and is excited about outcomes instead of
output. They see they are making a difference in guests lives instead of just keeping velocity up in a sprint.• Since we are involved when an idea is in the early stages, we can help define
how it could work and how fast it could be done. We can also see what doesn’t work when prototypes are demoed.
Team Feedback – PO• Before I used to feel like I had to come up with all the ideas by myself• I would not know which stories in my backlog were ready for engineering and I
was wasting peoples time• I didn’t know if the solution would solve the problem, but it would definitely be
built and we’d find out and later find that it was not exactly usable.• Now, ideas are coming from anyone on the team. We are designing smarter for
solutions we have existing capabilities for so we can build faster.• Bringing everyone together in the discovery phase has helped us move faster in
the development phase, and ensure we are working on high value stories.• We have a process for bringing stakeholder initiatives through discovery so we
create the best guest experience instead of just ’adding a feature’• Our sprint planning meetings are super fast and more focused on how much we
can get done in the next 2 weeks and less about one-off questions on if a story is ready to be built or not.
Everything is awesome
Q&A
Jimi Van GuilderPrincipal Product Owner – ”Help me fix it” Experience GroupTP3, [email protected]