Leveraging Collaborative Tools with Distributed Customer Teams

Agile 2009Luke Hohmann

Founder and CEO, Enthiosys

Agenda

1. Collaboration – What’s that?2. Challenges in distributed Agile teams3. CSCW Framework4. Solving specific problems with focused tools

A bit about Luke

Work Hard

Play Hard (even at work )

Agile Product Management

So, what’s Collaboration?

Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus.

Thanks, wikipedia!

It’s not the platform

But tools and platforms are important!!!

Is it about me?

It’s not about me… but I am important…

https://jazz.net/downloads/pages/rational-team-concert/2.0/M3/images/apt_tempo.png

It’s not “sharing”

But we need to share to collaborate. http://www.inf.unisi.ch/postdoc/lelli/imgIndexArticle/social_network.jpg

But notifications are important.But we need to be notified of changes.

It’s not just “talking”

Collaboration DOES Need Tools

collocated distributed

Different Time

SameTime

The Web HAS

ALWAYS BEEN

ABOUT COLLABORATIO

Nhttp://www.watchismo.com/images/products/detail/PastPresentFuturestainlessband.1.jpg

We can collaborate & innovate(better) through serious games

Not Humor Like Joke

Not Silly Like Water Park

More LikeSettlers of Catan &

EuchreMeet Business

And yes, it is FUNV1-388 Luke Did you enjoy this experience?V1-388 Toni Yes - fun!V1-388 Greg Sure.V1-388 Greg I enjoyed it.V1-388 Vladimir thanks for the chance. B)V1-393 Luke Did you enjoy the experience? Would you be willing to play again in

the future?V1-393 Tom yes, and yesV1-393 Mike Yes -- it was funV1-393 Sarah DefinitelyV1-393 Dominic Yes, and I think VersionOne are getting great info here

V1-393 Patrick I would be happy to play again.V1-394 Luke Team, are you now satisfied with your bids?V1-394 Mike YES!V1-394 Rene yupV1-394 Andre Indeed.V1-394 Jim I want more money!V1-394 Andre It was hard. But lots of fun. And yes, I want more money too - do you

take credit cards?V1-394 Mike hahahaV1-394 Mike ok, gotta go guys.... it was fun

Not Work(Leisure)

Pleasure

Work

Play

Not-Play

External GoalsInternal Goals

Not-P

leasure

Adapted from http://it.coe.uga.edu/~lrieber/resources/blanchardmodel.gif

Collaboration is about the goals

Manage strategic

roadmaps.

Identify New Products

Determine Product Interactions

Train Sales Teams

PrioritizeStrategicFeatures

ImproveMarketing Messages

PrioritizeProject Portfolio

Identify ProductEnhancements

Prioritize User Ideas

Enterprise Goals Have Verbs

Verbs mean ACTION

To take Action we need to:

• Create goals and/or equifinal meanings

• Reduce ambiguity• Reduce equivocality

• Identify, distribute, perform, integrate, verify…

Special Communication Problems in Distributed Teams

• Language• Culture• Cold communication• Time shifting takes a toll

Solving Specific Problems With Specific Tools

25

Collaborative Prioritization

Games

Prune the Product Tree

Buy a Feature

20/20 Vision

Planning Time Horizons

Daily

Sprint

Strategy

Portfolio

Product

Release

Exec

PM

DevTeam

2-4 wk

2-9 mon

many mons

years

many years

Iteration Plan

Portfolio Map

Release Plan

Vision & Roadmap

Roadmapping is NOT easy!

Cost of a Solving a Problem

Blended, fully loaded dev cost 180,000$ /yearIteration length 4 weeksIteration cost 13,850$ /developerIteration Team Size 8 peopleIteration cost 110,800$ /teamDelivered velocity 60 points/iteration

1,850$ per pointAvg backlog item size 5 pointsAvg backlog item cost 9,250$ Backlog items reqd for an epic? 24Avg epic cost 222,000$

The stakes are big!

Thundercloud

June 09 Sept 09 Dec 09 Mar 10 June 10

Jayko

Idaho

Version 4.0SaaS OfferingExtra fast installComprehensive PlatformsMulti-site CollaborationOracle Support

Version 3.2New platform supportSecurity Management Scalability enhancementsUsability improvementsBetter Integration*

Version 3.01Security PatchBetter ScalabilityClient Access SDK

Do your roadmaps look like this?

Or This?

Or This?

Actual Enthiosys client roadmap. Contents obscured per NDA.

Who Was Involved?

Innovation Game®: Prune the Product Tree

Goal:Understand the evolution of your offering.

• Draw a tree to represent growth of your offering

• Add current ideas from your roadmap as leaves and apples.

• 5 to 8 invited stakeholders shape the “growth” of your offering.

• Captures very rich information about perceptions of the future, timing of new concepts, balance, and relationships among ideas

What Kind of Tree?

Prune the Product Tree In-person

Identify Relationships

• B depends on A means:– A must come before B– deleting A deletes all its children

• B replaces A • C groups A, B means A and B both provide

independent value but C requires both• B is an alternative to A• B enhances A

Details on my blog at www.enthiosys.com

Prune the Product Tree -- Preparing

Planners define layers and regions so that they will know where players

are placing their ideas.

Planners choose images to represent growth.

Planners select the kind & number of items that can be placed on the

image during the game.

Place Initial Items

Any existing ideas or roadmap items are placed on the tree.

Playing the Game!Players collaborate in real-time to

place features/benefits (leaves/apples) on the tree.

An integrated chat facility enables you to understand

player motivations.

Players label and describe

their ideas

All information is recorded and available for analysis

Create Interpretations from the Results of Multiple Games

Game 1 Results

Game 2 Results

Interpretation

Game results are merged into a new game – which you can edit and shape, further process, or play with additional players.

Tabular Representation of Items for Post-Processing

Layers and regions enable planners to quickly determine where players have placed their items.

You can ask questions like “What are all of the features customers want in 2010?”

Problem: Prioritization

Common Approach Problems

Single expert Do they have the knowledge and trust of the organization to make the hard choices?

Small groups Tradeoffs are not clear

Large groups Insufficient tools!

Where is the “Voice of the Customer?“infinite” backlog

use casebug fixarch change

do this

do that

the other thing

Innovation Game® Buy a Feature

• A list of 12-20 items (features or projects) are described in terms of benefits and cost

• 5 to 8 invited stakeholders given limited “budget”, must reach consensus on projects to “buy”

• Captures very rich information about customer motivations, trade-offs, objections, actual collective needs

In-person• Provides rich opportunity for “new” ideasOnline• Captures data for sophisticated analysis of

preferences• Preliminary trials indicate faster/more

accurate results than traditional tools

Goal:Prioritize Product Backlogs / Project Portfolios

Buy A Feature Online - Preparing

A list of features with prices. This example is for product concepts for a pair of internet

sunglasses

“Shirt Sizes” help you quickly price your

features – or you can enter a price directly!

Buy A Feature Game PlayParticipants.

Planner sets their budget.

An integrated chat facility enables you to understand participant motivations. Here, we learn that participants dislike learning a rental car’s navigation system.

Participant bids.

Highly desired items are purchased.

Buy A Feature Online - Results

Results of many games played,

sorted by number of times

purchased.

Many Ways to Play: Parties, Galas, and Tournaments

What is it? Who plays? Facilitated? Number of Items?

Number of players?

Party A “dinner party”.

You select and control participants

Yes 12..20 5..8

Gala An “open seating event”

Random participants based on a shared URL

No 12..20 9+

Tournament A combination of parties!

You control and select participants

Yes 20+ Based on number of items and number of tournaments

Tournament Structure

15

15

7

745

15

14 7

7

14 7

1

2

3

4

5

List of projects

14 Each dark square represents one game

7 Each light square represents the “winning” projects

Play many tournaments to

control for “bracket strength”.

Tournament Case Study: VeriSign Global Customer Support

Context 46 projects ranging from small to very large.

Problem The VeriSign leadership needed to quickly identify the high-priority, most globally supported projects.

Engagement

Profile

VeriSign project managers prepared the portfolio for the games. Enthiosys structured the process into three tournaments involving ~60% of the 200 person global customer care organization and facilitated the games.

Results • Very clear separation of the “winning” projects – the original list of 46 was prioritized to the top 5 projects

• High degrees of collaboration – even when collaboration was not required to purchase an project!

• Participant chat logs provided detailed explanations behind the bidding – the meaning behind the choice.

• Participants considered the process fun.

VersionOne Case Study

• From Ian Culling, VersionOne CTO, on their use of Buy a Feature– The basic prioritized results held surprises– The rich information captured during the game

helped us understand the basis for that prioritization– The conclusions and recommendations derived from

the results were incredibly insightful– Our customers really enjoyed the experience and

appreciated the opportunity to have influence on our roadmap and priorities – in an hour or less of their time

http://www.togetherwecanchangetheworld.com/Images/TWCCTW.jpg

Games For Democracy

http://www.togetherwecanchangetheworld.com/Images/TWCCTW.jpg

Games For Democracy

Let’s Change the World

Luke Hohmann

Founder & CEO

Enthiosys, Inc.

615 National Ave., Ste 230

Mountain View, CA 94043

cell: (408) 529-0319

www.enthiosys.com

lhohmann@enthiosys.com

Innovation Through Understanding®