@ramonguiu 1

Lost In Translation

The Product Manager in Agile Organizations

Ramon Guiu

@ramonguiu

linkedin.com/in/ramonguiu

• 13 years building sofware

• Director of Product Management, Xyleme

• SaaS CMS and Mobile for Learning

• Completely Virtual

• Barcelona

@ramonguiu 3

SaaS & Mobile for learning

Semi-Agile 3 Products + 2 Apps + 3 Services

130 employees Agile 1 Platform + 1 Apps

Semi-Agile 2 Products + 1 App

Semi-Agile 2 Products + 2 Apps + 1 Services

35 employees Waterfall 1 Product + 1 App

2011

20132012

20152014

@ramonguiu

$94m

$292m

$1,700m

InitialBudget

Before Launch

Actual

• Launched in 1 October 2013. That day only 6

people could enroll

• 1% of users could enroll the first week

• For those, some mandatory information

missing

• Still many errors in January 2014

• UX and Architecture design problems

• Unexpected Load - was not tested enough

@ramonguiu

3 People Launch v1: UX Added Enrollments 3% of enrollments 8 people

Oct 2013 Nov 2013 Mar 2014 2015

“The Health Sherpa makes it ridiculously easy for anyone to compare health care plans covered under Obamacare in 34 states”

… it does cast light on the difference between what can be done by a small group of experts, steeped in Silicon Valley's anything-is-possible mentality, and a massive government project in which politics and bureaucracy seem to have helped create an unwieldy mess.

@ramonguiu 7

Waterfall

Requirements

Implementation

Maintenance

Design

Verification

Makes a lot of sense!

@ramonguiu

The Traditional Product Manager

8

Go To Market

Vision & Strategy

Requirements & Specs

Profitability

@ramonguiu 9

Management Waterfall

Predictability of the process

Deliverables - sense of progress

@ramonguiu

@ramonguiu 13

Waterfall

Requirements

Implementation

Maintenance

Design

Verification

Many months, even years

Not as good as we thought :(

@ramonguiu

Waterfall Fails in Software

14

Validation too late in the Process

Change is expensive, disruptive

Slow respose to market changes

@ramonguiu 15

How do we address these problems?

@ramonguiu 16

Technical Excellence

Customer Satisfaction

Sustainable DevelopmentSimplicity

The Agile ManifestoContinuous Improvement

Self-organization

Progress =

Software

Face-to-face

TrustBusiness

+ Development

Continuous Delivery

Changing Requirements

@ramonguiu 17

SCRUM

Isn’t this just a sequence of mini-waterfalls?

@ramonguiu

The Principles Are Different

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Shared Ownership

Reduce Waste

Continuous Colaboration

Experiment and MeasureDetailed requirements and solution design are defined as later as possible

The whole team is responsible for delivering successful software

Release early, measure and adapt. The same principle is applied to the product and to the

All members of the team discuss regularly, often daily to ensure they are aligned

@ramonguiu

The SCRUM Product Owner

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Share Knowledge

Product Backlog

User Stories

Maximize Value

@ramonguiu

The Traditional Product Manager

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Go To Market

Vision & Strategy

Requirements & Specs

Profitability

@ramonguiu

So the Traditional Product Manager is now called the SCRUM Product Owner

Wrong!

@ramonguiu

The Product Owner is a new role that may or may not be performed by the

Product Manager

@ramonguiu 23

Scenario 1

One person acts as Product Manager and Product Owner

@ramonguiu 24

Scenario 2

Split responsibilities between Product Manager (strategic) and Product Owner (tactical) with very close collaboration

@ramonguiu 25

Scenario 3

Go To Market handled by Product Marketing, the Product

Manager does the rest

@ramonguiu

Don’t Get Lost in Translation!

26

A great Product Manager is still key

Don’t be sectary: Experiment and Adapt

Embrace Agile Principles