Focus on the Customer

AGILE IS ABOUT FOCUSING
ON THE CUSTOMER
AND COLLABORATION…
So why do so many teams and
companies still fail to do it?

Copyright© Richard Dolman ThePragmaticAgilist.com
for PMI Chicagoland Professional Development Day
November 1, 2013

About Me
•  Agile evangelist, pragmatist, coach, trainer,
practitioner, explorer and learner

•  Senior Enterprise Agile Coach and Trainer with
agile42, LLC. (www.agile42.com)

•  10+ years practicing Agile and Lean

•  Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), Certified Scrum
Master (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM I),
ICAgile Certified Professional (ICP) and PMI Agile
Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)

My professional passion is helping companies solve critical business and
technology challenges, and empowering and enabling collaborative,
high-performing teams.

I enjoy coaching teams, executives and managers to explore the
possibilities of Agile and to seek creativity, innovation and continuous
improvement through Servant Leadership.

Copyright© Richard Dolman | ThePragmaticAgilist.com

2

Courtesy of VersionOne


3

Our highest priority is to satisfy the
customer through early and continuous
delivery of valuable software.

E CUSTOMER!
SATISFY TH


4

Welcome changing requirements, even late in
development. Agile processes harness change
for the customer's competitive advantage.

ive Advantage!
mer's Competit
Custo


5

Understanding Customers

WHO
AM
I
?


6

Context Diagram
Note: Examples based on a
conceptual online learning /
professional development
web site product.

HR System

HR Associate

Resource
Manager

Our
Product /
Solution

Domestic
Student

International
Student

Employee

Job Seeker

3rd Party
Vendor


Accounting
System

Payment
System

7

Onion Diagram
Broader Environment

Containing System

HR
System

System

HR
Associate

Job Seeker

Product

Resource
Manager

Domestic
Student

International
Student

Payment
System

Employee

Accounting
System

3rd Party
Vendor


Adapted from How To Visualize Stakeholder Analysis

By Scott Sehlhorst

8

Use Case Diagram
•  Use Case Diagrams take us a level deeper – to help us understand how

Stakeholders may interact with the solution at the Feature level.

Manage online
profile
Manager

Manage
Enterprise
Licenses

Search Online
Courses

Register for
Online Course

Track My
Learning
Job Seeker


Read/Write
Reviews

International
Student

Student

Manage My
Ratings and
Comments

Virtual Training
in native
language

Find a Job
9

User Personas
Jill – Online, Self-Learner

Characteristics

Business Analyst with 3-4 years experience, proficient with web,
knowledgeable of Agile but new to practice.

Goals

Improve depth of Agile knowledge, gain confidence in employing Agile
methods of gathering/documenting requirements, quickly learn how the BA
role fits into the team (including business and IT cohorts).

Likes / Needs

Intuitive, easy-to-navigate learning site with a simple but visually-appealing
user interface, ability to pause or exit and return to a video later (resuming
where she left off), ready access to free content as her employer has limited
training funds. She also would like the ability to access videos from work and
home and have phone/chat support to resolve issues.

Frustrations /
Pain Points

Confusing links, conflicting messages, lots of text on a webpage, plain or
difficult-to-read fonts, unprofessional-looking websites. She also dislikes
having to find “Do-it-yourself” help to issues in online forums.


10

Empathy Map
how much
does an
online course
cost?

interested in
course
offerings

Think & Feel?

What others
are saying
about a
course

Hear?

See?
course

details

my
experience
with online
courses

Pain
Cost

course

pricing

confusing
site
navigation

Say & Do?
Enroll in an
online course

able to

take online
course

Gain

Professional
Development

Adapted from Innovation Games / XPLANE


11

Exercise – Understanding your Customer
e
ow you can us
h
p and discuss
Pair u
o
or Personas t
Empathy Maps
mer or User’s
to
lore a key Cus
exp
Give it a try…
s?
role and need


12

Putting Agile into the Business’ hands
How should Business view Agile?

We need to help them answer the question –
“What’s in it for Me?”

13

Business people and developers must work
together daily throughout the project.

ork Together!
Biz & IT Must W


14

Courtesy of VersionOne


15

Product Demos

The goal is to get customer feedback
Inspect and Adapt the Product... to ensure they are satisfied
AND to help them harness change for their competitive
advantage…

16

How should we collaborate?

Deeply
Effectively
Sincerely

17

Start thinking and acting like Partners
What would Partners do?
- Stop thinking of IT as just a “Service provider”
and of Business simply as a “Stakeholder”
- Start reflecting together, as a team, on how to
improve our working relationship
- Start sharing Goals and Accountability


18

Reflect Together
Facilitate a Retrospective with your business partners
and customers to ask:
How well are we collaborating?
Are we producing real business results?
Do we have the right measures for success?
Do we have the right expertise to be effective?


19

Alter our language…
Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer
through early and continuous delivery of
valuable software.
solutions!
Business people and developers must workorate
collab
together daily throughout athe mproject.
…as tea !
OH! – and stop using the “Pig and Chicken” metaphor!


20

Change our World!
OK, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch.
BUT! We can change the
way we work with our
Customers and
Stakeholders…
To improve our:
ü  Collaboration
ü  Product Quality
ü  Corporate Culture

21

Q&A
Thank You

www.linkedin.com/in/richarddolman
richard@thepragmaticagilist.com
richard.dolman@agile42.com

22

Focus on the Customer

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (7)

Similar to Focus on the Customer

Similar to Focus on the Customer (20)

More from Richard Dolman

More from Richard Dolman (8)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Focus on the Customer