Small scale

Editor's Notes

• #2: - Welcome and Thank Customer for business - Introduce who is on the call from our side, and ask them to do the same. Ask for project roles from the participants - The purpose of this meeting is to introduce both teams, establish a baseline of what you are trying to accomplish so that we optimize our ability to help you achieve your objectives, and to provide you with information about VersionOne so that you can find any help and info that you may require
• #3: The discussion here will vary around whether or not we have already have some of this information, the size of the company, and to whom we are talking. If we have a lot of information about their goals and objectives, we should have the slide completed with their specific info. If not (or only a couple), review the Typical Objectives (results from the State of Agile Survey). Then help them decide what is important to them and document (we can send them an updated version after the call). The key rationale with understanding their objectives is to make sure we are providing the needed support to help obtain them. These will also be important talking points for subsequent check-in calls.
• #4: V1 conducts a “State of Agile Survey” annually the hits a significant portion of the Agile community. One of the things we ask about is why companies move to Agile dev methodologies. The primary reasons are as follows: Accelerate time to market – agile methodologies enable more frequent releases to production (Q: What frequency are you trying to get to and why – ex yearly to qtly?) Manage changing priorities – agile provides for on the fly changes without disrupting release schedules Better align IT with the business – agile development increases the frequency and quality of the interaction between the business and dev, helping to insure that corp objectives are aligned with what is being delivered Increase productivity – engineering teams are able to deliver more functionality, more frequently Improve software quality – and with better quality through Agile processes Enhance project visibility – agile tools and methodologies provide more visibility into the status of releases and roadmap items than traditional processes Reduce risk – Shorter, more visible delivery cycles, coupled with high frequency testing, are more likely to produce working, on time releases that a traditional, 6 month development cycle. If you went to your executive sponsor – which of these would they indicate are critical to the success of this effort? Are there others? How do you plan to measure?
• #5: Our experience has shown that customers who are exceeding their objectives with V1 have similar characteristics.   Commitment to agile practices In our state of agile survey, respondents who scaled agile successfully said the biggest success factor was executive support. We make AGILE easier.  Transforming an organization is hard.  It can feel like you are swimming upstream, if you don’t have support for agile practices.    Which agile practices are a focus for your organization right now?   Product configured for Agile Your Way As much as possible, the product should align to your way of working.  Keep it simple for your users!  Many times that means turning things off.   What steps have you taken to configure VersionOne to align to your way of working?   Effective Training Approach It’s not enough to have a plan for how people should use the product.  Your users have to have confidence in how to perform their software development activities in VersionOne.  One reason that our on-site training is so popular is that our trainers modify the course to reinforce the aspects of the product that matter to you.   What is your approach to product training?   Integrated Source Control Mgmt. Integrating source control management gives your developers full traceability.  It’s an easy way to increase productivity and show that you care about the developer experience.   Have you considered setting this integration up?   Engaged Team Leads Teams use the tool and talk about how it is working.  Having someone who takes ownership of knowing the usage guidelines and why they were chosen is a powerful way to reinforce the usage guidelines and capture feedback from the teams, so you can work to remove any impediments.   What is your approach for staying connected to the teams?   Proactive internal support Our most successful customers don’t stop with letting users know where to go if they have any issues.  They reach out to the teams and solicit feedback on how it’s going.   Have you put any other structures in place to support your users?
• #6: Despite this picture, I am actually a nice and helpful person. Re-enforce primary point of contact and subsequent check-in calls
• #7: Emphasize that the Community Site is the primary place to find info and get help. Talk about the various areas in the community site and the types of content Federated search capabilities to find the right content anywhere on the site Help center – video and written content with extensive coverage of the V1 application and usage scenarios Ask the community – when you can’t find an answer, we have an active user community willing to help each other Get training – tons of free “how to”info on the site, but if you need more, Get Training provides detailed information about what is availablre Suggest a Feature = Idea space, submit suggestions as well as review and vote on ideas from other users – Prod Mgmt reviews this frequently and utilizes to drive the roadmap for subsequent releases Developer Community – provides detailed technical information for common areas of the product and integrations. There is also a separate dev community where your engineers can seek answers and advice from other users of V1 (Should we have the Community Site up during this part of the meeting?)
• #8: When you can’t find what you need on the through the community site - excellent support staff available to resolve your problems Touch on the SLA and ways you contact – responds w/in 1 business day, typically much faster (Need link to Support FAQ)
• #9: VersionOne contributes more content, seminars, networking and thought leadership to the Agile community than any other provider . Describe the 3 bulleted - Agilelive Webinars, Agile Chronicles, State of Agile survey - But be prepared to discuss any of the others in case the customer has questions.