Agile... we are not there yet! Let's get closer with "well rounded product teams"

(Presentation from Spaces Summit 2019, bol.com)

Agile enables us to move away from the classical waterfall approaches, allowing more ownership and autonomy for the teams building products. This leads to higher velocity on building our products.

However, we are not there yet! We still have (hidden) "small waterfalls"! Products are defined by "business teams" (a.k.a.: "Business") and then implemented by "technical teams" (a.k.a.: "IT"). The result? Under-optimal agility and products flawed by design!

This talk is a call for action to stop these small waterfalls. I will focus on two specific points. First, teams must increase their technical leadership and safeguard the technical vision and design of their products. Second, the team working on the product must act as a single unit (not "Business" and "IT", but "Product Team"). Product Team owns the whole vision and design for the product. These are two essential elements to build what I call "well rounded product teams", which is key to achieve the true ambitions of Agile.

Presentation video here: https://youtu.be/ZeupQmwvoa0

Transcript

1. Agile... we are not there yet! Let's get closer with "well rounded product teams" Eduardo da Silva (@emgsilva|emgsilva@gmail.com)
2. We still have “Business” and “IT” silos with “hidden waterfalls” between each other
3. Silos & Hidden Waterfalls “Business” {Why, What} Complex communication (hidden waterfalls) “IT” {How} (feature factory)
4. How can we enable Business and Tech working more closely together?
5. How can we reach that? Dev + Ops = DevOps Teams (already WIP) Why not DevOps + Biz = BizDevOps? Aim: everyone moving on the same direction at “high velocity” => truly multidisciplinary team!
6. BizDevOps <=> Product Teams “Product Team” (and product organization) is becoming the term & approach for such team setup >> “team that owns the product” Follow this model
7. Product Teams - Some Properties Clear product goal and how to get there Focus/obsess on customer value Top-down Strategy & Bottom-Up / Emerging Strategy (with Experimentation and customer Validation)
8. Tech Leadership is a core skill for Tech-Savvy people within Product Teams
9. Stop being “feature factories”... Look at big picture Participate in the Product "Why" and "What" Govern the product technical vision Shiny tech is cool, but Product value is cooler Validate before over-engineer
10. Well Rounded Product Teams What does it take? How can we start going there?
11. Some Principles for building Well Rounded Teams* Learning Culture & WoW * Company Leadership needs to support this, otherwise it will not work! Scoping (Product, Architecture) Leadership (Product, Technical) Entrepreneurship People & Collaboration Products & Projects
12. Conclusion...
13. From “YBIYRIYLI” to “You own it, you make it shine” “Product Team” owns the product life-cycle “end-to-end” from “idea” to all the necessary activities to “make it shine” Team goal: “What shall we do next to improve our product”
14. Thank you! More on this in: http://esilva.net/well-rounded-product-teams img src: https://memeguy.com/photo/307170/when-youre-asked-to-join-a-team-project-you-know-nothing-about