Successful agile process in Product Management

Key points:

• Take people on the journey to make the change
• Make sure you have the right team in place and that they understand their roles
• If you fail to plan, you plan to fail…
• Empower your people and they will step up
• Experiment your way to growth and continuous improvement

I’m a big believer in using the right tool for the right job. Agile has become recognised as the hammer to digital’s nail. I have learnt over the years that process alone is not enough to deliver good results. But without good process, your chances for success are next to zero.

A bad process can be unclear or misunderstood. It may operate through corridor conversations or be encoded in jargon. Decisions are often the domain of senior executives alone. Team members are typically discouraged from providing input. Documentation is for documentation’s sake and is unlikely to be clear or used by those downstream of it.

A good process is clear and understood by the entire team. Everyone has a role and knows their role well. Plain language is used to explain the product. Management provides strategic direction, objectives and boundaries. Decisions are delegated to autonomous individuals or teams who have a clear line of sight. Creativity is encouraged and feedback welcomed. Collaboration is the name of the game.

You can see that whilst a process can be bad if only a few elements are wrong, a good process requires all elements to be strong. As the old adage goes:

One bad apple spoils the bunch

Below are the key areas to keep in mind when implementing or assessing your process. This article contains some good general advice for implementing a successful process.

People first and change management

People always need to come first and be at the centre of any change management activity and agile is no different. When you have bad elements in your process your team can help you identify and resolve them. They will only do this if they feel safe and heard.

We can be quick to believe that people are the problem and make changes to personnel. This costs business money and experience. Replacing skills is usually a lot easier than replacing domain knowledge.

We should instead embark on a change management effort and bring people on board with the new process. This way we are less likely to experience resistance from people.

This doesn’t mean that your team should be making these strategic decisions for you. Moving to a process for sound strategic reasons is a decision for management. What it does mean is that you need to have a plan for the change and truly hear people’s concerns.

A great benefit of hearing people’s concerns is that you can avoid the icebergs that you don’t see. Management may not be close enough to the detail to see some of these problems and that is normal. Let people contribute to make the place better and they may surprise you!

Clear roles and skill matching are important

Getting the most out of your people means they need to have a strong sense of clarity on their role. You know yourself that if you know what is expected of you then it is a lot easier to meet those expectations.

Have clear role descriptions in place that describes in detail what each role is expected to do. Have frequent and varied engagement with the team. Make sure that communication is not just one way – where you are pontificating about your wants and needs.

The agile procedures that you put in place must also be clear. Document them but know that there are different ways people absorb information. Some will favour a written procedure whereas others will want verbal training. Others still will benefit more from visual examples. Try to cater to all types and reinforce through repetition.

Analysing your team is another important step. Knowing the skills of your people and their potential will enable you to map them to the roles. This exercise will also help you ensure you have a succession plan in place for your team. Being clear and using effective communication is not always enough to guarantee success. Whilst we should always try to preserve domain knowledge sometimes change is required.

You may find that you have roles in your team that better suit the people currently in other roles. You may also find that you need to upskill your team to round out their skills.

Not everyone may make the journey in the long run and you may need to bring in new skills to make your business the success it should be.

Strategy and planning are keys to a successful agile transition

Having a clear strategy for your business and team is step one. Using this strategy to inform the team is made all the easier with a clear Product Plan.

Planning is perhaps the most important element of your agile process. It is the opportunity to explain to the team the What, How and Why (or Product, Process and Proof).

Planning needs to be collaborative and everyone’s voice must be heard. There are important roles as part of this planning activity like the facilitator. I won’t dive into those here but those who organise and help with planning must focus on those activities for the planning duration.

The team must all buy into your joint agile plan. If anyone doesn’t buy into the plan, then your chances of executing it well diminish rapidly.

Empower the teams to deliver for you

Once you have a plan in place for agile you move into execution mode. People who have a sense of autonomy will feel more responsible for the outcome. Empowered teams can also be scaled up in a way that other teams cannot.

If your strategy and plan are clear, and you provide well-defined boundaries then the right decisions will be made by your teams.

Don’t forget, these decisions are not made in isolation. Your process must have a way for information to flow up and down as well as left and right. Checks and balances will keep you moving in the right direction with a strong process.

Failure is not only OK, it’s critical for agile

Failure can be a scary topic, but it need not be. If you are not failing, you are not striving hard enough to deliver for your business. You will also not be innovating or realising your true potential.

When you get to the level of maturity where you can start growth hacking you will need to be OK with failure. These techniques can open up the potential for your business that you never thought possible. Without a solid agile process, growth hacking is a non-starter.

The bottom line is that if you are not innovating you risk disruption. Teams can’t innovate unless they are permitted to fail.

This is never a set and forget process. You will plan out short periods of time (Program Increments or Sprints) that will include many pieces of work (Features or Stories).

At the completion of the plan or a subset, a Retrospective reviews not only the output but also the process. This ensures that you move forward with a better process next time. The whole team gets better the more you do it. Practice may not make perfect but it sure makes better.

Are you responsible for this process in your business? We can help you better understand how you are doing and put in place the changes you need for success. Contact us to learn more.

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