Lean Startup Meetup Istanbul - From an idea to a backlog

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agile42 - The Agile Coaching Company
From an Idea to a Backlog
Success factors I observed by supporting start-ups
Ralf Kruse
@ralfhh

agile42 - The Agile Coaching Company
What makes a startup successful?

I’m more a coach and less and entrepreneur
What can I tell you?

Agile is value & principle based
• “Agile is not a pole. It is
values and principles that
urge us toward a better
way” - Ron Jeffries
Picture: http://sameelephant.tumblr.com/post/51790117847/agile-is-not-a-pole-it-is-values-and-principles
http://agilemanifesto.org/
Agile Manifesto
People & Interactions
Processes & Tools
Working Software
Comprehensive Documentation
Customer Collaboration
Contract Negotiation
Respond to change
Following a plan

Agile is value & principle based
• “Agile is not a pole. It is
values and principles that
urge us toward a better
way” - Ron Jeffries
Picture: http://sameelephant.tumblr.com/post/51790117847/agile-is-not-a-pole-it-is-values-and-principles
Crystal
FDD
Kanban?
Scrum
XP
http://agilemanifesto.org/
Agile Manifesto

How I created this talk
1. Gathering observation and insights from the clients of the last 5 years
2. Clustering them to meaningful themes

Collaborate to make it happen
Structuring the work towards the idea

Collaborate to make it happen

Unplanned work stops us …
… from working focused towards our goal
ToDo in Progress Done :-)

agile42 | We advise, train and coach companies building software www.agile42.com | All rights reserved. Copyright © 2007 - 2009.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011

How to deal with complexity & uncertainty?
Time-Box
Technology
Requirement

Fail early, learn fast
Don’t stick to long to the wrong assumptions
• Often people stick too long to their 
understanding on how it should work … 
… and fail
• How can we trigger more aggressive 
validation of assumptions
• Often it helps to mirror back the  
uncertainties, unknown & risks

Collaborate between
all involved disciplines
Estimation as an invitation to
exchange
Double loop Scrum
Value diversity and discourse
Design Development Test

Inspect on increments and use the feedback
Whats good enough? The right features? The right level of quality?
• Are the users accepting 
the solution
• Whats missing
• Fast enough?
• Code perfection?
• Maintainability?

Balance on what to do now …
… and what we should better do later

Structuring the work towards the idea

Understanding client context
Personas and the client needs

The projects dilemma
Keep options & validate early
# decisions knowledge

Underlaying 
conversations
Written
Summary

“Happy we agree”

End to end visibility

The right level of detail

Problem
Top 3 problems
Existing /
alternative
solutions
Customer
segments
Early
Success
metrics
Leading and lagging
indicators
Possible
solutions
Key features &
beneﬁts for
customers &
business
Business
readiness
What is needed
to deploy and
support the
solution?
(Staff, budget, training,
systems, support,
operations dependencies
on projects/vendors)
Channels
Path to
customers
Costs
People, training, capital, marketing,
etc.
+ Objective justiﬁcation
Business value
1. User & business value
2. Cost of Delay (urgency)
3. risk reduction/opportunity
enablement
ProductMarket
Cost of
delay
time
linear
delaycost
1,2,3,5,8,13,2 1,2,3,5,8,13,2
<Title / headline>
Lean Project Canvas
Understanding the need, give context and defer detailed solutions

Problem
•Distributors don’t
know inventory and
must call to ﬁnd it.
•Extra call volume
Existing alternative
solutions
•Call to ﬁnd inventory
•Order on back-order
•The competition
Customer
segments
•Distributors
Success
metrics
•Inventory inquiry
calls decline 50%
•large orders
increase by 5%
•Customer retention
up by 2% (6 months
in)
Possible
solutions
•Integrate ERP
inventory to order
system & web site
•Show estimated
ship date on orders
Business
readiness
•Marketing to
advertise feature
•Warehouse staff to
test ERP integration
•Setup to measure #
inventory inquiry
calls
Channels
•Web site
•Advertise to
distributors
Costs
•Web site development: Small
•ERP integration Small
•Marketing: Small
Business value
•Large order increase: $100k/year
•Customer retention up 2%: $100k/year
•$50k/year in reduced call volume
ProductMarket
Cost of
delay
time
linear
delaycost
1,2,3,5,8,13,21 1,2,3,5,8,13,2
Example: Inventory visibility for distributors

The weekly bazaar & endless discussions
Separate objective informations and selection
What are the next features to select?

In case of success

What made us successful?
Take care not to loose it in case of grows!

The risk of fragmentation and silos
Teams
Backlog

Ready to scale?

Lets sum up
In case of success
Structuring the work 
towards the idea
Collaborate to  
make it happen

Lean Startup Meetup Istanbul - From an idea to a backlog

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Lean Startup Meetup Istanbul - From an idea to a backlog