Building Effective Product Teams

You are probably already tired of the Agile, Scrum and Lean jargon. Maybe you think that all of this theory is a waste of time, or at least that is not having a big impact in your company or team.

As a developer that moved to a Technical Product Manager role, I’ve been working hard to declutter all the jargon and try simple ways to improve how teams work and deliver software.

We will discuss around questions like what makes a strong product team, how story mapping can help you deliver software faster, why talking is more important that writing user stories or why your team is not delivering as fast as you would like.

If you want to enjoy the GIFs from the deck, download the Keynote file: http://bit.ly/2yYhLrM

Transcript

1. Building effective
   product teams
   

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2. Hello!
   I’m Fernando Agüero.
   

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3. Madrid
   Devs
   I like to help
   communities
   ValenciaJS
   

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4. …and write
   about productivity
   

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5. Technical Product Manager
   I WORK AS A
   

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7. Talk Objectives
   

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8. 1. Having awareness on the issues we may find
   2.Being on the same page
   3.Fostering discussion
   Talk objectives
   Improve as a team by:
   

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9. The team
   

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10. What is a product team?
    

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11. • Product manager
    • Product designers
    • Product marketing managers
    • Engineers
    • QA Testers
    • Data Analysts
    The team
    

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12. • Product manager
    • Product designers
    • Product marketing managers
    • Engineers
    • QA Testers
    • Data Analysts
    The team
    

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13. Knowing the roles
    

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14. Knowing the roles
    and premises
    

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15. The Product Manager
    

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16. Thinking that product management is
    the same as gathering requirements
    and documenting them for engineers.
    The Product Manager
    PREMISE
    

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17. The Product Manager
    Thinking that product management is
    the same as gathering requirements
    and documenting them for engineers.
    PREMISE
    

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18. The Product Manager
    Product managers are responsible for
    guiding the success of a product and
    leading the cross-functional team
    that is responsible for improving it.
    

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19. The Product Designer
    

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20. The product designer work is to apply
    the lipstick model to the product.
    The Product Manager role
    The Product Designer
    PREMISE
    

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21. The product designer work is to apply
    the lipstick model to the product.
    The Product Manager role
    The Product Designer
    PREMISE
    

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22. Previously focusing on
    The Product Designer
    Turning specs from the PM into designs
    

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23. The Product Designer
    Previously focusing on
    Turning specs from the PM into designs
    

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24. Modern workflow
    The Product Designer
    Collaborate from discovery to delivery
    

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25. The Engineers
    

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26. Engineers should only code
    The Engineers
    PREMISE
    

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27. The Engineers
    Engineers should only code
    PREMISE
    

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28. If you are using engineers only to code,
    you're only getting about half their value.
    The Engineers
    

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29. Engineer are typically the best single
    source of innovation; yet, they are not even
    invited to the party in the discovery process.
    The Engineers
    

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30. It’s crucial that engineers know about the
    customers, specially the pain.
    The Engineers
    More than coding
    

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31. It's a great idea for them to join meetings
    with customers.
    The Engineers
    More than coding
    

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32. It’s all about
    extreme collaboration
    

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33. The team
    Products are designed
    collaboratively rather
    than in sequence
    

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34. The Team
    Using GitHub issues to
    discuss and iterate a story
    We currently use Google Docs for epics
    or complex problems.
    

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35. The Team
    Product Manager Engineers Product Designer
    The team
    

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36. Work in parallel to discover the product that needs
    to be build (mainly PM and designer) while delivering
    a production-quality product (mainly engineers).
    The team
    

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37. Engineers help on discovery:
    source of great ideas.
    PMs and designers help on delivering:
    mainly to clarify intended behavior.
    Discover
    Deliver
    The team
    

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38. Don't show the prototype to
    engineers during sprint planning
    so they can estimate.
    Ensure they can contribute every day
    to make the product better.
    The team
    

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39. The Process
    

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40. The Process
    5 key points
    

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41. 1. The Source of ideas
    

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42. Focusing only on your ideas
    Thinking you are the customer
    Using requirements from customers
    The source of ideas
    

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43. Focusing only on your ideas
    Thinking you are the customer
    Using requirements from customers
    The source of ideas
    

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44. Use your vision and objectives
    Learn from your customers struggle
    Analyze usage data
    The source of ideas
    

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45. Talk with customers
    Focus on them, not on your product.
    The source of ideas
    

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46. The source of ideas
    Do not just ask:
    What do you like about our product?
    Ask questions like:
    When you need to do x, how are you doing it?
    When was the last time you needed to do x?
    

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47. Talk with customers
    Using Intercom to help and
    learn from the customers
    

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48. Analyze usage
    Using Mixpanel to discover
    insights and understanding
    impact and usage of features
    

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49. 2. Focusing on the outcome
    

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50. Focusing on the outcome
    The more you ship...
    The faster you ship...
    

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51. It’s all about shipping!
    Focusing on the outcome
    Focusing on the outcome
    

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52. Burning story points doesn’t matter
    if you are not doing the right thing.
    Focusing on the outcome
    

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53. Focusing on the outcome
    Agile Reminder
    

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54. Agile Reminder
    Focusing on the outcome
    

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55. • More than following a plan,
    respond to change.
    • Hundred of other stuff…
    Focusing on the outcome
    

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56. It’s fine to remove a
    story from a Sprint
    or change the scope
    if it makes sense.
    Focusing on the outcome
    

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57. 3. Building less
    

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58. Build less.
    Building less
    

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59. Build less. For real.
    Building less
    

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60. There's always more to build than
    we have time or resources to build.
    Building less
    

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61. Organizing pipeline using
    three GitHub milestones
    1. Current work
    2. Next tasks
    3. Future
    Milestones:
    

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62. Are you going to build
    all at once?
    If you keep validating it,
    you may go…
    Building less
    

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63. Building less
    • View the basic info: title, rating, director, etc
    • View the movie poster
    • Link to trailer
    Good Enough:
    

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64. Building less
    • View the basic info: title, rating, director, etc
    • View the movie poster
    • Link to trailer
    Good Enough:
    • Movie synopsis
    • User and reviewer ratings
    • List of actors
    Better:
    

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65. Building less
    • View the basic info: title, rating, director, etc
    • View the movie poster
    • Link to trailer
    Good Enough:
    • Movie synopsis
    • User and reviewer ratings
    • List of actors
    Better:
    • Trivia about the movie
    • News about the movie
    • Ability to participate in discussions
    Best:
    

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66. 4. Build shared understanding
    

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67. Build shared understanding
    Story
    

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68. Build shared understanding
    Story
    

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69. Build shared understanding
    Story
    

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70. Build shared understanding
    We agree!
    Story
    

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71. Build shared understanding
    Shared documents
    is not
    shared understanding
    

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72. There is no
    perfect way of
    writing stories
    Build shared understanding
    

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73. Build shared understanding
    • Stories are not specs
    • The real goal of stories is to
    build shared understanding
    Writing stories:
    

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74. Using
    Story mapping
    

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75. Story mapping
    Story mapping consists of ordering user
    stories along two independent dimensions:
    activities and implementation
    

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76. Image from manifest.co.uk
    

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77. Image from realtimeboard.com
    

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78. Story mapping
    Use story mapping by having conversations
    to build shared understanding.
    

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79. • Focus on the breadth, not depth
    • Follow user journeys/jobs
    • Prepare a release strategy
    • Prepare a development strategy
    Tips:
    Story mapping
    

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80. Try it with your team when designing a
    complex feature or flow.
    Story mapping
    

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81. 5. Avoid burning out
    

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82. Avoid burning out
    Another normal day at work
    

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83. Avoid burning out
    Working on the right thing
    with the right process
    Working harder
    >
    Better than
    

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84. Avoid burning out
    Be careful when working only on
    “keeping the lights on” activities.
    

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85. The Thinking Week
    Avoid burning out
    Making innovation an habit
    

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86. Avoid burning out
    Every month, we spend a week
    learning, improving workflows,
    and trying new things.
    

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87. Avoid burning out
    • Open sourced one of our frontend components
    • Created an internal tool
    • Played with Docker Swarm
    • Improved our build processes
    • Wrote two articles
    Some achievements we had in our first week:
    

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88. • Open sourced one of our frontend components
    • Created an internal tool
    • Played with Docker Swarm
    • Improved our build processes
    • Wrote two articles
    Some achievements we had in our first week:
    Avoid burning out
    

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89. References &
    Book Recommendations
    

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90. Inspired
    MARTY CAGAN
    How to create tech products customers love
    

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91. User Story Mapping
    JEFF PATTON & PETER ECONOMY
    Discover the whole story, build the right product
    

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92. Make Time
    JAKE KNAPP & JOHN ZERATSKY
    How to focus on what matter every day
    

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93. Thanks!
    @fjaguero
    

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