Comments
- 1-6 of 6
Alex -
I strongly recommend managing technical debt through entropy reduction. See my previous post in the Rally Hive (http://agilecommons.org/posts/af5771f5b0) and also my book Beyond Software Architecture for my details.
Luke Hohmann | CEO | Enthiosys, Inc. | 615 National Ave, Ste. 220 | Mountain View, CA 94043
Motivated From Within
cell: (408) 529-0319 | lhohmann@enthiosys.com | www.enthiosys.comJoin the Innovation Games Forum: http://innovationgames.com/forum/
Author of "Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions" and"Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play"
Evan -
It is nice to see that Agile 2008 is enabling so many of us to present various perspectives on prioritizing backlogs. My understanding of the Incremental Funding Method is that it uses NPV as calculated from projected revenue / costs. My experience is that while Agile teams often create reasonable cost estimates, they do not gather projected revenue in a defensible manner (see http://www.enthiosys.com/insights-tools/prioritizeforprofit1of3). Will your presentation discuss ways in which an agile team can gather projected revenue for suitable NPV calculations? What is the time frame you recommend for analyzing and responding to expected vs. actual financial performance based on IFM?
Luke Hohmann | CEO | Enthiosys, Inc. | 615 National Ave, Ste. 220 | Mountain View, CA 94043
Motivated From Within
cell: (408) 529-0319 | lhohmann@enthiosys.com | www.enthiosys.comJoin the Innovation Games Forum: http://innovationgames.com/forum/
Author of "Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions" and"Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play"
- Everyone -
On behalf of the rest of the board, we also invite you to extend this conversation with your ideas on acceptance criteria that you consider valid for our purpose. Since your members of the Agile Alliance (and you are members, right?), when do you think that we will have succeeded with our vision?
Luke Chris -
You're asking some very direct questions with very complex answers. At the risk of being a bit brief, the points you raise help to very clearly distinguish between the role of a "product owner" vs. the art of "Product Management".
Regards, Luke Hohmann | CEO | Enthiosys, Inc. | 615 National Ave, Ste. 220 | Mountain View, CA 94043
As you point out, a traditional product owner has the luxury of interacting with a generally well-known, and typically small, number of customers. Not so for the traditional product manager, who may be dealing with many hundreds to many millions of customers. To make effective decisions, great product managers DO NOT rely "on their gut" to make critical decisions about their product. Instead, they engage various forms of market research (secondary and primary, quantitative and qualitative) and market segmentation techniques to enable them to build products that meet their customer needs. A useful way to get started is to get clear on the problems that your customers are trying to solve, and here at Enthiosys we recommend www.innovationgames.com as a powerful way to get your started.
Motivated From Within
cell: (408) 529-0319 | lhohmann@enthiosys.com | www.enthiosys.com Join the Innovation Games Forum: http://innovationgames.com/forum/
Author of "Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions" and"Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play"- Ryan -
I strong agree with your thoughts on a "cool down" cycle. In my book Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions I refer to this as an entropy reduction episode. Indeed, I even talk about the concept of being consumed by your work and "giving in" to your job in my first book, Journey of the Software Professional. These are important concepts, because, quite frankly, I reject the concept of "sustainable pace" means "40 hours per week every week like a robot". I learned a long time ago that I have cycles in my work, my life. When I'm committed and passionate, I want to work hard -- it consume me, and man, am I happy when that happens. I don't arbitrarily stop myself. I run with it. Similarly, Agile teams need to be allowed to run passionately hot when needed and need to be given a chance to recover.
You can see a full description of Entropy Reduction, including useful implementation tips, here: http://www.enthiosys.com/insights-tools/blog/entropy-reduction-and-sustainable-agile-development/.
Luke - Sorry - My number got chopped from this post. Call me at 408-529-0319 and check it out!
Update: I should add that product managers who love their products have trouble sleeping! Enthiosys is building out some incredibly cool software that we hope to release in the next few months. I'm so enthused about what we're doing that even when I'm tired and go to bed I find myself thinking about our software when I drift off to sleep. WAHOO!
