Deliver It Cast

It's one of the core tenants of creating products in an agile way, and something Product Owners need to be keenly aware of, but what exactly is "working software" anyway? Some are confused by the term, opinions differ, and still, others think it's impossible or not enough. In this episode, the focus is on a practical definition and one that should apply to every story PO's and teams work on together. This is one of the telltale signs of successful agile efforts, frequently getting working software to people who need it. Feedback: twitter - @deliveritcast email - [email protected] Links: PO Coaching and Consulting - seek taiju Skytap - How Do You Define Working Software? Gojko Adzic - Redefining software quality Ron Jefferies - Twelve Jeff Gothlef - The top 10 rebuttals to: "Agile is great. But it won't work here." The Register - Accenture sued over website redesign so bad it Hertz Zero Hedge - The Best Analysis Of What Really Happened To The Boeing 737 Max From A Pilot & Software Engineer Personal Kanban - Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life

There is almost an incalculable number of ways a Product Owner can feel stressed. It can be overwhelming if you do not find strategies and mindsets to deal with stress effectively. In this episode, Geoff Watts joins the show again to discuss his recent thoughts on why we feel stressed and what control we have over how we respond. This was also a listener suggested topic and one that is truly helpful for PO's to become more mindful and focused on. Feedback: twitter - @deliveritcast email - [email protected] Links: PO Coaching and Consulting - seek taiju Geoff Watts - @geoffcwatts - @theagilepubcast - https://inspectandadapt.com/ Geoff Watts - Stress-Free Traffic | How To Find The Silver Linings Robinson, Smith, Seal - Stress Management: How to Reduce, Prevent, and Cope with Stress Colleen O'Rourke - Coping with Product Manager Burnout Martin Stahl - The Product Owner cargo-cult detection checklist Dominica Degrandis - Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work & Flow

When Product Owners are communicating with stories, the way they are written and told can help establish some clarity. The stories are only part of the puzzle when collaborating with others and there is certainly more than one way to craft them. If you've written them the same way before and are looking for some alternatives, in this episode you'll learn about some new formats, tweaks to existing ones, and ways to keep them relevant. Feedback: twitter - @deliveritcast email - [email protected] Links: PO Coaching and Consulting - seek taiju Crisp - "As a, I want, So that" Considered Harmful Pragmatic - Writing the Market Requirements Document Alan Klement - Replacing The User Story With The Job Story Maarten Dalmijn - Unheralded Alternatives to User Stories XSCALE Alliance - https://xscalealliance.org/index.html Michael Kusters - Your Sprint Reviews suck, and that's why! Jonathan Forman - Things you need to 'do' to become a successful Product Manager

There are a lot of Product Management skills that a great Product Owner needs to learn about. One of the best teachers of those skills is ProduxLabs CEO, Melissa Perri. She has a brand new book all about product roles, skills, strategy, and creating product-led organizations. All of these ideas are intended to help get you and your company out of the Build Trap, a place where customer success takes a backseat to shipping features. PO's will benefit from adopting the ideas that Melissa has around finding real problems that help the people who use our products, and the systems that create them. Feedback: twitter - @deliveritcast email - [email protected] Links: PO Coaching and Consulting - seek taiju Melissa Perri - @lissijean - produxlabs.com - melissaperri.com http://www.produxlabs.com/book/ https://www.mindtheproduct.com/2017/07/escaping-build-trap-melissa-perri/ https://uxpodcast.com/206-build-trap-melissa-perri/ TSSC - NUMIT Cheaper Better Faster: Toyota help feed Hurricane Sandy Victims John Cutler - Value and Flow

What is a Product Owner to do when a story is too big to fit into a sprint? Or what about when a PO is working with an idea that will take some time to study and learn with the team? How do you treat these ideas? It's common to use the term Epic to describe a problem that is bigger than a story and in this episode, that's what we dig into. There are, however, many different takes, strategies, and definitions of epics. Understanding the differences can help you wield them successfully. Feedback: twitter - @deliveritcast email - [email protected] Links: PO Coaching and Consulting - seek taiju Kent McDonald - Epic Confusion Mike Cohn - You Don't Need a Complicated Story Hierarchy Mike Cohn - Two Examples of Splitting Epics 3Back - Top 10 Tips To Becoming A Better PO Neil Killick - My Slicing Heuristic Concept Explained

Many times as Product Owners we are asked to do more than the team can handle. Having a way to sort through all of the ideas, problems, and yes even requests are sometimes necessary to put in place. In the first episode of Season 5, the notion of a funnel to sift those items though is discussed, some thoughts on how to do it, how to make sure you focus on those things valuable enough to say yes to, and ways to show the scope of all those asks to everyone. Welcome back everyone! Feedback: twitter - @deliveritcast email - [email protected] Links: PO Coaching and Consulting - seek taiju Bob Galen - Scrum Product Ownership, 3rd Edition Justin Bauer - We're Evolving Our Product's North Star Metric. Here's Why. Ash Maurya - The Idea Funnel CPrime - Getting from an Idea to Actionable Backlog Teresa Torres - Prioritize Opportunities, Not Solutions

I truly hope that the Product Owners and people who care about them got a lot out of this season. We've had some wonderful quests, great topics, and learned a lot. In this episode I wanted to round up some questions that have been asked and leave you with some parting thoughts about PO's, agility, and other areas. Thank you all so much for listening and sharing the show around. Feedback: twitter - @deliveritcast email - [email protected] Links: PO Coaching and Consulting - seek taiju Charles Lambdin - Estimating Cost of Delay Andrew Rusling - Theory Of Constraints applied to an agile task board Willem-Jan Ageling - Scrum — 17 things that need to be in place to succeed. And then one more! Mike Cohn - 3 questions to determine if an organization is agile

Product Owners can learn a lot about getting feedback from users by picking up some UX practices. One of the better ways to do that is with a focused customer interview. In this episode we welcome Jessica Ivins who is a UX designer and educator to talk about some of the better strategies, methods, and questions to use. Interviewing a customer is a great skill for PO's to continue to get better at as it helps keep the focus on the user and the problems that our products help them solve. Feedback: twitter - @deliveritcast email - [email protected] Links: PO Coaching and Consulting - seek taiju Jessica Ivins @jessicaivins - http://jessicaivins.net/ - https://medium.com/@jessicaivins Interaction Design Foundation - How to Conduct User Interviews Interviewing Users How to Uncover Compelling Insights Matt Isherwood - Customer Interviews Jeff Gothelf - Agile Isn't Supposed To Be UX Hostile Jack Krawczyk - Product Leadership Rules to Live By From My Experience at Pandora

What mode are you working in as a Product Owner? Are you and the team working on projects? Or products? What is the way you're organized, measured, or deciding what to do? In this episode there is some exploration into these two mindsets and what they really mean. Since this is a new concept ( for me at least ), there are some thoughts on what product mode could look like and what project mode has been successfully able to do in the past. What's your take? Which are you working in? Feedback: twitter - @deliveritcast email - [email protected] Links: PO Coaching and Consulting - seek taiju Annie Dunham How to Maintain a Coherent Product Roadmap Yuri Malishenko - Two simple techniques that will dramatically improve your whiteboard skills Sriram Narayan - Products over Projects Jeremy Rossman - Project vs Product P1 - Project vs Product P2 Henrik Kniberg - Spotify engineering culture

Product Owners should really like our individual conversations and interactions with people, sometimes we also need useful tools to help do our job. Which tools are important, helpful, and the best ones to get good at? In this episode we will discuss some of the better ones based on my history with them, why they are helpful, and what you might look to do with each of them. If you have a favorite tool you use, do share it with us so we can expand our toolbox. Feedback: twitter - @deliveritcast email - [email protected] Links: PO Coaching and Consulting - seek taiju Arlen Bankston - Lean Startup Tools for Scrum Product Owners John Cutler - That'll Never Work Here: Heretics, Head Noddies, and the Drift Into Mediocrity· Robin Johnson -3 Real-Life Examples of Incredibly Successful A/B Tests Tools : Realtimeboard - webwhiteboard - trello - leankit - pocket - snag-it - jing - balsamiq - groupmap - invision - pixabay - unsplash - producthunt - mindmup - cardboardit - storiesonboard - pendo - mixpanel - colors - picker - ludus