Happy People Build Better Products than Agile Teams

I gave this talk at Oulu Agile Seminar 13.8.2014

1. HAPPY PEOPLE BUILD BETTER PRODUCTS THAN AGILE TEAMS
2. Tuomas Jomppanen Development Manager OP-Pohjola, Oulu 13.8.2014
3. Disclaimer Digital Products can be built in many ways. This presentation is about a small team building web/mobile products and we’re constantly trying to fi nd better ways to do our work. It might not work for you, but at least for now, it works for us :)
5. is “internal startup” of
6. “Best Design” “Best Mobile Application” “Best Digital Design” Awards
7. Development Team Product Owner Team Project Stakeholders Business, Marketing, Systems, partners, etc
8. Pivo::Concept.new()
9. Lean Product Development Learn Fast and Release Often
10. Do people have problem with mobile wallets?
11. Hi! Can you walk us through the last time you bought stuff? Ok, let’s see — I went to grocery shop yesterday and…
12. Paying with cash or card is not a problem.
13. But moments before and after the purchase might have few problems worth solving
14. How did we learned this?
15. Is it valid information?
16. Science fi ction Validated learning
17. Lean = Fast and Validated
18. Inspiration Customer Development Lean Startup Lean Canvas The Mom Test Jobs to be done
19. Brainstorm Interview people (get out of the building) Analyze Lean Canvas, Create Hypotheses 3-4 hours? Idea Are our hypotheses valid?
20. “Problem Validation”
21. Actions > Words
22. Solution Interviews Analyze Build Prototype Few days, Week? Customer Journeys User Stories
23. “Solution Validation”
24. Iterate
25. Brainstorm Problem Interviews Analyze Idea Build Prototype Solution Interviews Analyze
26. Does the user have a problem? Does our solution solve the problem? Are they willing to pay for it?
28. Pivo::Release.new()
29. Happy Team Sacri fi ce The Illusion of Controlling Everything
30. Unknown Problem Known Problem Unknown Solution Known Solution
31. Unknown Problem Known Problem Unknown Solution Known Solution H arder Easier
32. eCommerce Platform Pivo CMS Unknown Problem Known Problem Unknown Solution Known Solution
33. Unknown Problem Known Problem Unknown Solution Known Solution U npredictable Predictable
34. A project with a unknown problem and a unknown solution, It’s nearly impossible to make correct estimates
35. How can you estimate something that has never been built before?
36. Milestones become just meaningless random dates
37. We are not completely milestone-free, but we use them as rarely as possible
38. People tend not to like worrying about schedules and estimates
39. Tracking hours is just waste of time and it makes people unhappy
40. New normal Understand that the team works as close to the long-term maximum as possible when they are happy
41. Unhappy people are not productive
42. People like working on meaningful things
43. People like learning new stuff
44. Happy people are more productive
45. CFO: What if we train our employees and they leave us? CEO: What if we don’t and they stay?
46. Focus on People
47. Communicate the Vision
48. As a product owner, this is what you were hired to do
49. Death by powerpoint is not an option
50. Concept videos
51. Picture is worth a 1000 words
52. Make a small movie about your concept
53. Concept Video 1. Write a customer journey 2. Make a rough storyboard about the happy case 3. Film it
55. How we develop Pivo?
56. - Scrum - Kanban - Estimating user stories
57. - One week sprints - One product backlog - Six component backlogs - Two backend teams - Three client teams
58. Each sprint starts with team’s planning meeting Product Owner goes through The Product Backlog in planning meeting
59. Product Backlog has the “epics” (or features). Five stages: - Maybe - In concepting - In development - Pilot/QA - Released
60. It’s a simple wiki page.
61. About 50% of backlog items comes from the team members. - Main ingredient of our success - Everybody shares the same vision - Roadmap becomes a team-
62. Pivo development process in a nutshell - Focus on people - Don’t waste time on estimates - One week sprints - Communicate the roadmap - Major feature deserves a concept video - Release as often as possible
63. Why care about the happiness of the team?
64. Happy team == Happy Customer
65. Agile software projects are great, as long as the team is happy :)
66. Best example of happy team and happy customer
68. Thank You! www.jomppanen.com