Agile Supercharged Scaling Agile as a Business Change Tool. James Yoxall Indigoblue Kevin Heery IPC Media Agile Business Conference

Transcription

1 Agile Supercharged Scaling Agile as a Business Change Tool James Yoxall Indigoblue Kevin Heery IPC Media Agile Business Conference

2 How IPC drive VALUE over EFFORT

3 Agile at IPC Doing Agile for 5 years Scrum and Kanban teams Development process was Agile Business process wasn t Agile Engaged with IndigoBlue in May

4 Vanity Metrics wedopublishing.com Business model: display advertising Performance Metrics: Page Impressions / Unique Visitors 2011 Average: 5m Page Impressions / 1m Unique Visitors 2012 Average Target: 7.5m Page Impressions / 1.5m Unique Visitors What should they do? SEO Newsletter optimisation More frequent news updates SEM New video channel Launch a Facebook app Get into the Apple store Build relationships with influential bloggers Launch a forum Make a game Acquire wedopublishingtoo.com

5 But What do we do First?

6 Don t Know? The Data tells us how we re performing Not how to perform better

7 Measuring Customers not Products Pioneered by the new social games giants: Acquisition (Cost per Acquisition - CPA) How do I get the right audience to turn up for the least amount of money Retention How do I persuade them to come back of their own accord, so I don t have to pay to get them again Monetisation (LifeTime Value - LTV) How do I persuade them to buy stuff or do other things that make me money If I get CPA < LTV and my audience is still growing I sell my company for $250m

8 Publishing Site Customer Journey Awareness Acquisition Engagement Monetisation Recruitment Referral Retention

9 Objective Setting Increase revenues Top Rank objective Display revenues Sponsor revenues Affiliate revenues Increase yield Increase inventory = Strategy Increase Unique Visitors Increase Visits Per User Increase Pages Per Visit Increase offline marketing Increase Online marketing Increase Organic search visits Increase Social referrals Increase MoM visitor retention Priority Tactic Improve pageload speed Trigger Objective

10 What Should IPC Do Differently? Measure customer journey and identify strategic gaps. Objectives are for filling gaps Run objective review and KPI setting sessions at least every 3 months Attendees should include PD, Editorial, Marketing, Sales rep, Product Manager and FULL development team Reduce objectives list to 3 max - better to act on one at a time For each objective, decide on a max of 2 KPIs (use %s, not volume numbers) Communicate objectives and KPIs to EVERYONE involved Put someone in charge of each one. Editor? Marketer? Sales Exec? Product Manager? Review performance versus KPIs at least every 3 weeks

11 What should IPC do differently? Agree the Trigger Objective Product team debate how to improve performance 1st Loop Getting the MVP live Establish a measure of performance Yes Measure performance Objective achieved? No List ideas and prioritise [value vs effort] Every other loop Testing Optimising QUICKLY Build and launch Start with top priority Agree minimum viable product

12 Grand Design vs. Incremental Development

13 Grand Design Approach Develop a Product Vision that fulfils an Objective Build feature A1 Build feature A2 Build feature A3 Build feature A4 Launch Move on to next objective

14 Incremental Approach Develop a Product Vision that fulfils an Objective Agree Assumptions and measures to test Agree MVP Build feature A1 Build feature A2 Launch and Measure Pivot? MVP Persevere Build Feature feature A3 Launch and Measure Build feature A3 Launch and Measure Pivot? Persevere Build Feature feature A4 Build feature A4 Persevere Build feature A4 Launch Launch Launch Move on to next objective Move on to next objective Move on to next objective

15 Getting Value Early Develop a Product Vision that fulfils an Objective Agree Assumptions and measures to test Agree MVP Build feature A1 Build feature A2 Launch and Measure Pivot? MVP Persevere Build feature A3 Launch and Measure Build feature A3 Launch and Measure Pivot? Persevere Build feature A4 Build feature A4 Persevere Build feature A4 Launch Launch Launch Move on to next objective Move on to next objective Move on to next objective

16 Failing Fast Develop a Product Vision that fulfils an Objective Agree Assumptions and measures to test Agree MVP STOP Build feature A1 Build feature A2 Launch and Measure Pivot? MVP Persevere Build feature A3 Launch and Measure Build feature A3 Launch and Measure Pivot? Persevere Build feature A4 Build feature A4 Persevere Build feature A4 Launch Launch Launch Move on to next objective Move on to next objective Move on to next objective

17 Prior Agile Whiteboard

18 New Board - Objectives, KPIs and Target 18

19 New Board - Validating Column and they re already winning!

20 New Board - What worked and what didn t? And what did we do that we knew wouldn t help our objective!? 20

21 Measure VALUE as well as Effort Unplanned / No KPI Planned Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3 Sprint 4 Sprint 5 Sprint 6 21

22 Optimisation Tools

23 Optimisation Analytics

24 Optimisation Analytics 40% increase in sign ups

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26 James Yoxall

27 Specific Changes at IPC Create a structured approach to planning and prioritising change Highlight the volume of non-strategic work Build measurement and validation into each story Be explicit about assumptions and underline the need for experiments

28 Wider Considerations This was a mature Agile team, and yet Waste in the system occurs when work done does not achieve the intend result Or when more work is done than necessary achieve result or fail the experiment The team was overly focused on solution and velocity Focus on BUSINESS VALUE was outside the room Was the team not doing Agile properly? Was the Product Owner not fulfilling their role? How can you tell whether a team is doing Agile properly?

29 A Reminder of the Past The development factory a recent real-world example Optimise development to minimise cost Focus on rigorous entry criteria Impact on the wider system Projects spend a long time preparing to start development Deployment cycle times (for new systems) measured in years Development capability is lagging behind business expansion The board considers IT to be broken To Agile eyes The difficult work is being shifted outside the system There is a disconnect from business value Development is being batched up Optimisation is not across all the activities required to deliver value

30 Key Message - Don t Do Agile Agile is not a set of activities Agile is a different way of thinking about how an organisation achieves its aims, with intended benefits More business value Less risk Shorter release cycles Higher quality Agile is a set of concepts and a toolbox of techniques We are constantly improving our understanding of what organisations want and how Agile thinking enables that We are inventing new tools all the time Scrum is just one particular toolbox it is a good first step on a journey

31 Don t Stop With the Agile Manifesto Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan The manifesto (partially) describes the way of thinking not the benefits to the business It is related to activities

32 Be Clear About the Boundaries of the System Optimising part of a system may negatively impact the whole system It s not just about IT delivery, but Agile initiatives are often IT-led (can the tail wag the dog?) The Product Owner is a very simplistic way of extending the boundaries beyond IT Apart from being available, it is very unclear how the business should think differently A process that assumes the wrong boundary will be the wrong process Provide specific tools to widen the system Understand the objectives, constraints and concerns of the wider systems ( the business ) Explain to the wider system how they need to think differently, and how that will benefit their objectives Provide specific tools to support effective business engagement - Decision-making - Governance

33 How the Business Needs to Think Differently Incremental Planning Clarity on the meaning of value How to achieve it early and often Build in the ability to pivot Uncertainty Management What don t we know and how are we going to address it? Up-front approaches - Investigation and analysis - Assumption - Assigned ownership Alternatives - Experiment and feedback Uncertainty and risk - Reducing uncertainty too late increases risk - Reducing uncertainty too early increases risk The interface to the supplier is not just about Solution

34 In Conclusion Definition of a novice: "rigid adherence to taught rules or plans From the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition Many teams who have learned Agile successfully are now needing support to get to the next level of adoption A key area of focus is widening the scope of the system to include the business This introduces a number of challenges which require new Agile tools, e.g. Delegation models and authority structures Rapid decision-making structures Agile governance frameworks

35 Thank You