Part of the Process

First day of a new conference - SofaConf 2020 "A stay-at-home conference"  - that came about in reaction to COVID-19 and lockdown/travel restrictions. Overall very good content so far, lots of sessions that speak to real issues in doing product development in the real world. Slight technical issue with quality of Andy Budd's broadcast that was quickly sorted. The Secret Weapon to Finding Focus - Melissa Perri Melissa explained the build trap, where features are not seen as "what is the business value I want to provide" but rather "here are some features we want as  output". Netflix realised that they were in the build trap with Roku, and getting into competition with hardware companies that they could partner with. So they spun it out and so that they could then double down on their core competency. Now is the time to focus, what can we do to win? .... first you need a good product Strategy framework. alignment builds autonomous teams. The right level ...

Photo by  Matthew Spiteri  on  Unsplash Inspired by this tweet I have decided to do a follow up to what I have learned in 2017 , with what I have "unlearned" Try it the other way around…. What have you unlearned / let go of this year? https://t.co/uzbsumUzh7 — Dan Creswell (@dancres) December 30, 2017 I really like this idea, as looking back I suspect most of the time I’ve truly learned something I’ve been able to let go. In 2018 I am going to be much more mindful about whether fear or learning drives adding new ideas/skills/practices this year. I feel that it is much easier to layer on new skills while you learn them, without thinking about what in your tool kit is no longer useful ... or at least if the effort outweighs  the benefit/impact  of not doing it. The main thing I have let go of this year has been no longer worrying about agile/scrum ceremonies and artifacts. Along with the main team I work with, I have moved to a much mor...

I've had this book on preview as each chapter came out and I've finally had a chance to read the full release version. So before it gets officially launch at MTPCon on June 13th here is my round-up... Formats : Paperback, DAISY, ePub, Mobi, PDF Where can I get it?  From  O'Reilly , Amazon or .... any good bookshop, although I think there are currently only 500 physical copies left world wide!     Who is it for?  Anyone involved in a software product development team or a startup founder thinking about which roles to hire next.  What's it about?  Product management, product leadership, not just the overlap but also the differences. How to grow your career as you grow into product leadership and how to hire the role for senior management. What's the book like?  The book is divided into three sections: The Product Leader The Right Leader for the Right Time Working with Customers, Agencies, Partners, and External Stakeholders The ...

Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg So having a good roadmap with themes it is now important to get the work delivered somehow. Unless the developers have done something similar enough before. You need some way of discovering how to chunk up the work. What you call this doesn't really matter, but I have used the agile term "spike".  According to a comment in the Agile dictionary , this is a rock climbing term. A spike is driven into the rock face to help support the climbers. Although it does not get us closer to the top it allows us to go faster and have a safer climb. Likewise, a development spike doesn't produce the feature faster, but it provides a foundation to move forwards. In a project kick-off meeting, I remarked about how successful the spike had been. A developer there joked that I should write a blog about it, so here it is... "challenge accepted". I have been reflecting on what I feel made the spike successful. This particular...

The wrong kind of roadmap... This post was inspired by a chance conversation from a developer, from another Brighton based software product firm. This occurred during The Lean Event . The conversation started during an audience participation section of Jared Spool's talk . I told him about trying to organise around themes and in exchange He told me about a lack of connection without that. This pleased me as it meant I was on the right track, but also reminded me not everyone has it sorted ( even if you think they do from the outside ). Unknown to me at the time I was sat at the table with Roman Pilcher! (more on him later) In the past three years there have been three big influences on the way that I look at roadmaps. Well that and software development, they are (in chronological order): Gojko Adzic introduced me to Impact Mapping at one of the first Product Owner Survival Camps.  First we learned about the importance of goals. Then being able to measure the impac...