Why customers suck in agile and how could they be helped?

Karoliina Luoto · Alpha 1, 12-12:30 Wed 26 Aug 2015
Why customers suck
and what can be done about it?
Ale 2015, Paradise Center, Sofia

Karoliina Luoto + Codento
Consultant for
Agile coaching and consulting
Focus: customer work
Before: product owner, collaboration
strategist, communications specialist
Change agent’s right hand
Works in actual software development too

Let me tell you
A story
Karoliina.luoto@codento.com · @totoroki · +358 40 765 8504

Photo: Sam Howzit, Flickr
Picture: Malabooboo, Flickr
Monsters Inc.
Wanted to develop an e-child-
scarer
Picture: © Disney Pixar

The product
manager team had
heard about this
Scrum thing and
wanted to try it out

A company called Monsters Inc.
scarer
The project board
Was a bit suspicious about agile

A company called Monsters Inc.
scarer
But the e-scarer had potential
- So they found the money

The brand new
Product Owner
was super happy about
how Scrum seemed
”We don’t need to plan,
we’ll just find a team, start
developing and
see what happens!”

The Development Team
Was talented and visionated

The Product Manager Team
Worked their arses off

Writing and prioritizing
Backlog items

And the team really got
Sprint goals completed

And the team really got
Sprint goals completed
Often Sprint Reviews
Were revelations for POs

So this is the kind of product
We are building! Seems
Excellent!

POs got loads of user feedback
And tried to answer it all

Time flied, project board tired
When do we get the results?

The Scrum Team did great
But nobody seemed to understan

Finally the PO burnouted
It seemed impossible to succee

The project was shut down:
”Agile is not for us”

Monsters returned to
The old manual scaring syste

*The dev team w
What had gone
The team and others were
baffled
What had gone wrong?
The team was baffled
What had gone wrong?

So how could the
Development Team have
helped?

Agile Client Hand-Holder Test
for Scrum Masters and Dev Teams
1. Have you had a liftoff (kickoff) for both product vision and methods?
Test by: Karoliina Luoto Further reading: Agile Liftoff / Diana
Portland
2. Have you asked for project board vision on the value of different features?
Vision document? Lean canvas?
3. Do you collect user feedback on the value of features?
6. Have you told the product owner what you feel is worth focusing on?
7. Are you focusing on 20 % solutions that can fulfill 80 % of the need?
8. Are you telling the PO about differently-sized implementation options for
items?
4. Are you tracking business value over sprints?
5. Are you asking the PO to test – early and often?
9. Is your Product Owner attending retrospectives?

Tools for
Helping the client

Loan poker cards
To the project board
Photo: karla_k., FlickrPhoto: Karoliina Luoto
Value poker for epics in
project board
Needs somebody to facilitate
Aligns Product Owner’s vision
with the project board’s

Value feedback
From Users
Billing or ”How much is this
feature worth to you?”
”Will this feature keep you
from going to competitor?”
Get the feedback to the
board

Value burnup chart
to keep track
Based on project board’s
value poker or real value
feedback from users
Ensures that effort is
used on valuable stuff

Alternative plannig
poker
In planning meetings
Play for lightest possible
implementation
…and the for the perfect one
To help PO see the
scale

Default solutions
For piloting
Modules put up with
default settings, code from
old projects…
Get the PO to pilot the
workflows and get feedback
After that iterations add
value

Open reviews
For product
understanding
Photo: Karoliina Luoto
Also project board to
reviewsHave the end-user feedback
at hand for everyone
For shared vision and effort
discussion

The End 
www.codento.com
www.agileownership.com
Karoliina Luoto · @totoroki · +358 40 765 8504

Why customers suck in agile and how could they be helped?

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Why customers suck in agile and how could they be helped?