daniel nicolescu agilepm-final

Agile for Cross-Functional Teams

Daniel NicolescuChief Product Officer at Avangate

Software Development

Agile software development refers to a group of software development methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams.-- Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development)

What is Agile?

• Delegate and trust people• Acknowledge change as a standard• Promote constant feedback• Work in short iterations• Focus on business priorities• Inspect and adapt

Agile principles

• Deliver high business value in short time• High level of customer satisfaction• Working software is delivered all the time• Quick implementation time for feedback• Excellence by innovation

Agile benefits

• Requires very experienced people to understand both business and technical

• Hard to provide an accurate time and cost estimate at the beginning of the development cycle

• Hard to maintain FOCUS

Agile disadvantages

Market expectations• Enable Avangate clients (software vendors) to cross sell

products from other clients.• High conversion rates• Make it profitable

Case study: Vendor Cross Sales

Challenges• One feature, many ideas• Make it an “easy sale” • Deal with different interests within the same team• Make it work

Case study: Vendor Cross Sales

How we did it• Separate meetings with each department• Business requirements for company leaders• Product specifications (mockups, usability)• Feedback meetings on development stages• Final version presentation in front of the company• Official launch – a great success?• Clients feedback – final touch!

Case study: Vendor Cross Sales

Lessons learned• Validate each decision with the team – always!• Get feedback • Write down requirements and constantly update them • Agile does not require fewer written requirements but

collaboration to identify them

Case study: Vendor Cross Sales

1. Build a cross-functional product team2. Define and agree the product strategy3. Implement and promote feedback and collaboration tools4. Define “personas” and build for them5. Communicate, communicate, communicate

5 Tips for an agile implementation

1. Switch off instant messenger and email notifications2. Take one day a week to work outside the office3. Sleep at least 7 hours a day4. Go jogging in the morning5. Learn to say “NO”

5 Tips for productivity

1. Communicate, communicate, communicate2. Build a great product story and promote it like hell3. Make sure you respond to each feedback4. Don’t forget about the BUGs

1. Fix them as they appear2. Define a “quick response” team

5. Case studies about business value generated by ideas

5 Tips for a great collaboration

“Behind every great product there is a great product manager.”Marty Cagan – Silicon Valley Product Group

Source: http://www.avangate.com/interviews/marty-cagan_15.htm

One more thing…

?!?

Questions

Thank you!

Daniel NicolescuChief Product Officerdaniel.nicolescu@avangate.com