Building the right thing matters more than building the thing right. These articles help Product Owners and product leaders prioritize ruthlessly, validate early, and deliver maximum value to customers.
Key Takeaways Hardware doesn't have to be the last to change. By reimagining how we deliver products, we can break free from outdated constraints and accelerate innovation for the future. Imagine standing at a crossroads.
Are you ready to transform your customer support function into a proactive, high-performing force? Traditional support methods often rely on reactive approaches, handling each ticket in isolation.
Modern techniques have reshaped how teams plan, develop, and deliver value for years. In fact, when organizations embrace modern Agile techniques, they build a resilient foundation that endures even in the face of rapid technological change.
Are you ready to transform sluggish processes into market-winning strategies? Delivering a product that meets customer needs quickly is vital for staying competitive.
In today's software development landscape, speed, flexibility, and reliability are more than just buzzwords. They form the backbone of successful product delivery. One practice that stands out in enabling these qualities is continuous delivery.
In today's fast-paced markets, putting customers at the center of your strategy is no longer optional--it's essential.
Accurate estimation is one of the key challenges faced by Agile teams. It's more than just guessing task duration--it builds alignment, enhances collaboration, and helps teams prioritize and deliver value consistently.
In today's volatile business environment, Agile teams face constant change. Managing risk isn't just an option--it's a survival skill. By proactively spotting and addressing challenges, Agile teams keep delivering value even in unpredictable situations.
Agile Methodologies promise faster value delivery, improved product quality, and enhanced adaptability in today's business landscape. However, adopting Agile Methodologies doesn't automatically translate into meaningful results.
Effectively organizing tasks can be a major challenge for teams, especially when faced with conflicting deadlines, unexpected interruptions, and multiple ongoing projects.
In today's competitive environment, organizations must connect strategic objectives with daily execution to deliver value efficiently. Value Stream Management achieves this by providing visibility, alignment, and continuous improvement across the entire value delivery process.
Story point estimates have been a staple in Agile software development, used by teams--including Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and developers--to gauge the complexity, effort, and size of work.
Lean Portfolio Management provides organizations with a framework to improve alignment, optimize value delivery, and reach strategic objectives by focusing on value streams, frequent feedback loops, and open transparency.
Team alignment is crucial for success in environments that prioritize collaboration, adaptability, and quick value delivery. For Agile teams, aligning around a shared goal ensures smooth coordination, reduces misunderstandings, and boosts performance.
Value stream mapping is a powerful technique that enhances collaboration between sales and operations, optimizes workflows, and strengthens organizational agility. In today's fast-paced business environment, efficiency and alignment are critical.
As Agile practices continue to thrive across various industries, preparing for Agile-related interviews is essential for your organization's growth.
Transitioning from traditional Waterfall methodologies to Agile represents a fundamental shift in how organizations approach planning, execution, and stakeholder engagement.
Companies implementing Agile learning strategies have reported improvements in employee productivity.. In an era defined by rapid technological advancements and constant market shifts, organizations must strategically embrace change rather than merely react to it.
In today's fast-paced business environment, organizations strive to deliver value quickly and efficiently. One of the key strategies to achieve this is mastering Work In Process (WIP) methods within Agile methodologies.
Organizations must adapt swiftly to stay competitive in the technology landscape. Agile Transformation has become a critical endeavor for businesses aiming to enhance their productivity, deliver value faster, and improve quality.
Delivering high-quality products that satisfy user needs is more crucial than ever for tech companies aiming to stay competitive.
Mastering Agile prioritization techniques is more crucial than ever. Agile Transformation isn't just about adopting new principles and practices; it's about reshaping the way teams think, plan, and execute to deliver value swiftly.
Did you know that Product Owners who prioritize effectively can improve team efficiency by up to 30%? Product Owners play a pivotal role in Agile environments, serving as the bridge between stakeholders and development teams.
Achieving success requires flexibility, collaboration, and effective planning. Agile project planning has emerged as a vital approach in project management, empowering organizations to adapt swiftly, deliver high-quality outcomes, and stay ahead of the competition.
Staying ahead of the competition requires speed and adaptability. Embracing Enterprise Agile Planning can transform your organization, making it more responsive, efficient, and customer-focused.
In Agile product development, acceptance criteria play a vital role in ensuring that teams deliver high-quality products that meet stakeholder expectations.
Did you know that organizations adopting the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) report significant increases in productivity and time-to-market? SAFe 6.
The WHAT The Art of Saying 'No' in Agile: A Key to Effective Prioritization In the world of Agile, one of the most powerful, yet often overlooked, skills is the ability to say 'No.'
Success in the fast paced world of software development hinges not just on technical expertise, but on the strategic integration of robust architecture, cohesive teamwork, and advanced automation.
In today's fast-paced business environment, the ability to bring products to market swiftly is not just an advantage; it's a necessity.
In the dynamic world of product management, Agile Methodologies have become a beacon for teams seeking to enhance their adaptability and speed. However, implementing Agile in practice comes with its own set of challenges, from minimizing churn to optimizing team performance.
In today's fast-paced digital economy, the ability to deliver products swiftly and efficiently is not just an advantage; it's a necessity.
Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) has become a pivotal strategy for many organizations aiming to optimize their product development efforts and align them with business objectives.
![The Importance of Articulating Value [Video]](/_next/image?url=%2Fimages%2Fblog%2FScreen-Shot-2023-09-05-at-1.17.24-PM.png&w=2048&q=75)
Instead of prioritizing by unfounded estimates, it's time to review backlogs on a regular basis and have conversations about value and what can be delivered in shorter timeframes. This creates...
There are many ways to prioritize work... MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have) WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion...not recommended but it happens).
I'd just concluded an engagement as an Agile Coach with a major online retailer. After years of experiencing successful initiatives, it was evident that this was not one of them.
This summer we've been focusing on enhancing the team-level experience in Path to Agility Navigator. Our newest features include an Agile Outcome side panel, new capability and prioritization views, Team Dashboard, and streamlined progress visualization.
New feature alert! We understand how important it is to be able to visualize team performance and improvement areas so we made it even easier! Watch as David Hawks gives a tour of the newest feature updates in Path to Agility Navigator.
According to the 16th annual State of Agile report, 44% of respondents reported that achieving predictability is how they prioritized the implementation of Agile ways of working. This was the #2 reason.
https://youtu.be/4lZvsxqiqSQ In this video, Path to Agility Product Manager Seth Ely speaks at Agile2022 Nashville on what he calls the 'Yo-Yo Transformation' and how to make sustainable changes along your Agile journey.
In this video, David Hawks gives a breakdown of what's new and what's changed in our recent Path to Agility® 2.4 model update. https://youtu.be/hfXI3FXq9R4 Last month we hosted our latest virtual Mini-Conference, where David Hawks gave a talk on our new Path to Agility 2.
https://youtu.be/0YBlbNLnYWI In this video, Path to Agility® Senior Product Manager Seth Ely gives you a tour of Path to Agility Navigator, our new software tool designed to manage your entire Agile transformation.
https://youtu.be/er9uh4eN5NM Agile transformations ought to impact actual business results, like improved innovation.
Value stream mapping is a common practice in the Agile space because it allows leaders and stakeholders to see where the flow of value delivery is slowing down and exposes opportunities to create better alignment across teams.
When we talk to leaders about what they want from Agile, most of the time, the top answer is Speed. Businesses need fast product delivery in order to satisfy customers and grow revenue.
This is another in a series of blogs on the topic of Lean Economics, emphasizing the economic aspects of product development. You can find the first post about WIP limits here. As a developer, do you work multiple projects in parallel?
To estimate or not? To re-estimate or not? This short article will tackle the second question. We''ll weigh in on #EstimateGate in a later blog post.
This is the first in a series of blogs on the topic of Lean Economics, emphasizing the economic aspects of product development. I have a friend who once emphatically stated 'Agile will never work at my company because we have more projects than people!
This video breaks down the basics of one of the most popular Agile frameworks, Scrum, and covers topics like: Scrum Roles Scrum teams Backlog Prioritization Scrum ceremonies Sprint cycles See below for the full transcription.
Backlog Refinement has been gaining momentum as a best practice in Scrum. I think it's so important that I champion it to be a standard event, on par with Sprint Planning, Sprint Retrospectives, and Standups. (If you agree you should go to the Scrum Guide's site and vote it up).
The final installment of our MVP, PSI, MMF Alphabet series digs into MMF (Minimum Marketable Feature). Understanding the distinction between Potentially Shippable and what you actually want to ship is critical for Product Owners.
Don't make the hardest decisions at the dumbest point (ie. the beginning) in your Agile planning process. When we first start on a project, we rarely have a complete idea of what it takes to create a truly great product.
For the second installment of our MVP, MMF, PSI Alphabet Soup series, we're going to tackle the PSI (Potentially Shippable Increment) also known as PSPI (Potentially Shippable Product Increment).
When I'm working with new Product Owners, I frequently find that we get caught up in a sea of TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms) when it comes time to actually start turning their Backlog of ideas into releasable increments of value.
Purpose The Sprint Planning meeting is a two-part meeting where the team commits to a sprint goal for the next two-week sprint with a complete sprint backlog of prioritized product requests, their tasks, and sizes.
If you read David's blog about story mapping, you may have gotten extremely excited to try it out and then the fear and doubt set in. Just because you are in the middle of building something doesn't mean story mapping isn't for you.
As a 15-year Scrum practitioner, I try to revisit the official Scrum Guide, sometimes referred to as the 'Scrum Bible', to make sure I stay on top of any updates associated with the framework roles, events, artifacts, rules, and underlying philosophies.
Key Takeaways and Why Story Mapping Matters Why Traditional Backlogs Fail Agile Teams Traditional product backlogs can get confusing. They typically start off with a high-level list of features, called 'epics'.
The Agile Manifesto was created over 15 years ago. Most of the focus in the Agile/Scrum world since then has been to improve product delivery; we have fixated on how we make the development of ideas more effective.
User Stories have become the standard way Agile teams capture requirements and were introduced almost 20 years ago as a part of XP (Extreme Programming). To put it in context, that''s four presidents and 14 iPhone models later.
Product Owners are in high demand. Searching on Indeed for 'Product Owner' pulled up 103 new jobs posted this month.
The ScrumMaster role on the team is never static and takes on many forms. Their role is one of servant leadership; as the team needs, the ScrumMaster provides.
Did you guys know it was election season? Don't worry, we're not here to discuss the five candidates on the presidential ballot. We're here to discuss and debate the following question... If the United States was a development team, would POTUS be a ScrumMaster or Product Owner?
A lot has happened since my last Agile marketing post about revamping the editorial calendar. For one thing, I still use my editorial calendar, but it's become a brainstorm repository instead of an organizational tool.
A hurdle for companies who are transitioning to Agile is how to find your product owner. Should they look externally or is it OK to look within as they already have roles that are similar to the Product Owner (PO) position.
Once upon a time, there was a Scrum team that was new to the methodology. It was their first backlog grooming session and they needed to prioritize their newly written user stories.
Remember when you were a kid being told to eat your vegetables? Even though you know they're good for you, you just don't 'wanna' sometimes. Story point estimation can be similar. It can feel like an extra meeting in your already busy schedule.
A healthy backlog has 2 sprints worth of sprintable stories. What does this mean? Learn what makes a story 'ready' and how many to have in your backlog at all times.
With Daily Scrum, Backlog Grooming, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, and finally the Retrospective, Scrum provides a lot of opportunities for the team to come together and discuss, assess, and pivot when necessary. In other words, meet on a regular basis.
It's been said that your product backlog is the ultimate to-do list. However, have you ever tried to complete a to-do list without prioritizing each task first? Or going to the grocery store without grouping items? You couldn't pay me to go to a grocery store with a chaotic list.
Part 6 of 6 in the 'Double the Value in Half the Time' series based on David Hawks' presentation from Keep Austin Agile 2015. The last problem is this: everything's important, everything's high priority, everything must get done.
Product Owners typically express application requirements from a user-centric perspective. This usually means that non-functional requirements are not a primary focus.
Part 2 of 6 in the 'Double the Value in Half the Time' series based on David Hawks' presentation from Keep Austin Agile 2015. Stay tuned for subsequent posts...
Part 1 of 6 in the Double the Value in Half the Time series based on David Hawks' presentation from Keep Austin Agile 2015 . Stay tuned for subsequent posts... Traditional Project Planning Traditionally we create our plans up front at our Dumbest Point.
In Agile methodology, the role of the Product Owner is critical to the overall effectiveness and success of the development team. When a company is looking to increase the time to market and productivity, a dedicated product owner is one solution.
As we work with software product teams, we see more struggling than success with Agile. After conducting many assessments, we've found almost all organizations have the potential to deliver double the value and cut their delivery time in half.
What is the role of the Agile Business Analyst? David Hawks covers iterative requirements, the relationship between product owners and business analysts, and how to create user stories that drive value.
David Hawks presented Introduction to Agile for Product Managers at ProductCamp Austin, covering what Agile is, how it compares to traditional waterfall development, and advantages of Agile for increased visibility and shortened feedback loops.
Kent Beck said it best: 'I'm not a great programmer, I'm a pretty good programmer with great habits.' What are some of these habits which help product development go from good to great?
It's been over 10 years since the official Agile movement startedㅡa time when companies were focused on projects, deadlines, and budgets. Agile approaches shifted thinking from large, single delivery linear projects to small incremental, continuously delivered features.
Technical Debt Every software project has it. Technical debt in a software project is essentially a backlog of technical stories the development team thinks need to be completed that are not visible to the product owner and don't directly implement user features.
We asked Product Managers, Business Analysts, and Project Managers to identify their most challenging product development risks. See how these three professional groups ranked the risks. Business Analysts: Risks in Product Development 1. Product incompletely addresses the needs of targeted users 2.
This is Part 1 of a 3-part blog series for Scrum Masters, Product and Product Managers, and facilitators. Use these exercises to break the ice and lead meetings that are fun and energized, resulting in more participant engagement.
This is Part 2 of a 3-part blog series for Scrum Masters, Product and Product Managers, and facilitators. Use these exercises to incite brainstorming meetings that are fun and energized, resulting in more participant engagement.
This is Part 3 of a 3-part blog series for Scrum Masters, Product and Product Managers, and facilitators. Use these exercises to lead long meetings that are fun and energized, resulting in more participant engagement. These exercises are great for re-energizing a group, especially in long meetings.
In the first part of this blog series, we introduced the Advanced Release Chart Template and discussed how to communicate progress to customers and stakeholders using burnup and burndown charts.
'That's not Agile and Lean!' 'We're not being lean enough.' 'We're not supposed to make deliverables!' Sound familiar? I hear these statements all the time from teams moving towards a more evidence-based approach to product discovery, conception, and production.
Behavior Driven Development is the process of writing high-level scenarios verifying a User Story meets the Acceptance Criteria and the expectations of the stakeholders.
This is the fifth post in our Scrum Assessment Series. Often teams are working on features over multiple sprints scheduled in a release. Planning and tracking these releases can be very difficult, but you can't tell the business we have no idea what will be delivered.
Behavior Driven Development Behavior Driven Development is the process of writing high-level scenarios verifying a User Story meets the Acceptance Criteria and the expectations of the stakeholders.
Last month I attended the Agile2012 Conference, where the core themes were Agile Organization Transformation and thoughts challenging the effectiveness of the currently defined Product Owner role.
Our prior post, Evolution of a User Story, provides a better understanding of how a new feature or product transforms from high-level epics to sprint-sized or incremental stories.
Many Product Owners we work with find themselves struggling with when and how they should break their epics down into an actionable user story. In this post, we'll talk more about the 'when' portion and how you can get into a regular cadence of evolving your backlog.
I get a little resistance from teams to start using Story Points for estimating, but it really is a superior way to estimate over hour based estimates.
I just read an article about how the Duke Nukem project went on for 12 years and never released. A comment from the article, 'he did not appear to have an endgame: an overall plan for what the finished product would look like, and thus a way to recognize when it was nearing completion' [...]
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