Post on 06-May-2015
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®