Approaches to Iterating

Recall that we at Cauvin, Inc. specialize in agile product management. Most agile methods incorporate iterations. With iterations, you develop and "release" the product many times before the final release to customers. In each time-boxed iteration, you refine the requirements, design, implementation, and tests for that "release" of the product. (I'll explore in a future entry how some agile methodologies plan the tests for the product before they design and implement.)

Yet sometimes it's not immediately obvious how to divide a product development effort into iterations. Here are some approaches that we use with our clients:

Verbal Description - Flesh out use cases and verbally walk through the customer experience with prospective customers.
Mock-Up - Compose a Powerpoint presentation or other user interface and use it to demonstrate the user experience to prospective customers.
Simulation - Create a simulated environment for testing your product and demonstrate your product working in that environment.
Use Cases per Iteration - Implement just a subset of the product's use cases and demonstrate them to prospective customers.
Use Case Versions per Iteration - Implement simplified versions of the use cases your product will ultimately satisfy. Demonstrate these working versions to prospective customers.

No matter which approaches you use to divide your product development effort into iterations, try to confront uncertainties and risks (in requirements and design) in early iterations.

Comments

Why Spreadsheets Suck for Prioritizing

The Goal As a company executive, you want confidence that your product team (which includes all the people, from all departments, responsible for product success) has a sound basis for deciding which items are on the product roadmap. You also want confidence the team is prioritizing the items in a smart way. What Should We Prioritize? The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. Melissa Perri makes an excellent case for a " problem roadmap ", and, in general, I recommend focusing on the latter types of items. However, the topic of what types of items you should prioritize - and in what situations - is interesting and important but beyond the scope of this blog entry. A Sad but Familiar Story If there is significant controversy about priorities, then almost inevitably, a product manager or other member of the team decides to put together The Spreadsheet. I've done it. Some of the mos

Stop Validating and Start Falsifying

The product management and startup worlds are buzzing about the importance of "validation". In this entry, I'll explain how this idea originated and why it's leading organizations astray. Why Validate? In lean startup circles, you constantly hear about "validated learning" and "validating" product ideas: The assumption is that you have a great product idea and seek validation from customers before expending vast resources to build and bring it to market. Indeed, it makes sense to transcend conventional approaches to making product decisions . Intuition, sales anecdotes, feature requests from customers, backward industry thinking, and spreadsheets don't form the basis for sound product decisions. Incorporating lean startup concepts , and a more scientific approach to learning markets, is undoubtedly a sounder approach. Moreover, in larger organizations, sometimes further in the product life-cycle, everyone seems to have an opinio

Henry Ford's "Faster Horse" Quote

You may have heard the ( apocryphal ) Henry Ford quote: If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse". Over at the On Product Management blog , Saeed gives his take on this infamous quote. He "hates" it, and gives some compelling reasons. Saeed is spot on in his explanations. Personally, I think the quote is great, but it's a matter of interpretation. The valid point of the quote is not that it's a bad idea to facilitate a conversation with your market to better understand it. The valid points are: You must ask the right questions to get valuable answers. You must interpret the answers thoughtfully - often outside their direct meaning - to glean reliable information. Asking questions is not always the best way to "listen" to your market. (E.g., sometimes pure observational studies are more reliable.) Nonetheless, I find the quote is helpful to combat "armchair product management" in the

Cauvin

Search This Blog