Lean Startup Tools for Agile Product Teams Lean+Agile DC, Feb. 11, 2014
Meet the Presenter Arlen Bankston Co-Founder of LitheSpeed, LLC User experience & product development background 15 years of Agile experience Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt Lately 40% training, 20% each of coaching, product development & management 2
Agenda Agile & The Lean Startup Movement Holistic Discovery Risk-driven Product Backlog Exploratory Sprints Data-driven Sprint Review Validating Product Increment 3
Agile & The Lean Startup Movement
Risks of Agile 1. Backlog items are not always validated against true enduser needs 2. Critical reliance on a fallible Product Owner 3. Lack of clear advice on how and when to pivot 4. IT bias fall back on what we know: build, build, build 5
Lean Startup Movement A Brief History Steve Blank coined customer discovery in the book Four Steps to the Epiphany Steve funded Eric Ries s startup company IMVU in 2004 In 2010, Alex Osterwalder wrote Business Model Generation In 2011, Eric wrote The Lean Startup 6
Lean Discovery + Agile Delivery Illustrated DISCOVERY Holis'c Discovery Risk- driven Product Backlog Exploratory Sprints Data- driven Sprint Review Valida'ng Product Increment List Market, Customer, Product risks Illustrate business model/case Priori'ze by riskiest assump'on Include valida'on mechanisms Team intercepts users Team helps design experiments Review experiment results Pivot, Persevere, Punt Scan for new opportuni'es Measure key usage pajerns Focus MVP on early adopters
Holistic Discovery Assessing key customers, problems & markets Holis'c Discovery Risk- driven Product Backlog Exploratory Sprints Data- driven Sprint Review Valida'ng Product Increment List Market, Customer, Product risks Illustrate business model/case
Itera've Risk Management Product Risk Are we solving a substantial problem? What are our technical challenges? Customer Risk Who are our ideal customers? Do we understand their needs? Market Risk Do we have a viable market niche? Are we better than the competition? 9
Problem Interview Talk with early adopters to learn whether they share your perception of the problem. This is a sample interview script to validate & rank problems with users. 10 Thanks to Ash Maurya, author of Running Lean for this format: http://www.runningleanhq.com/
Test Your Riskiest AssumpBon We are envisioning a monthly studio panel of users and experts discussing prioritized topics related to Lean and Agile methods. Our Riskiest Assumption People will pay ~$50/month for content that is often available for free, if the quality and delivery channels are sufficiently appealing. Would you?
Discovering Customer Needs [In]validate your assumptions by: Interviewing users Observing users in their native environments Manually simulating your system ( concierge ) Rapid usability testing Tracking behavior of customer cohorts (related groups) 12
Validation Board for Experimentation Plan and track experiments to test your assumptions about customers, problems & solutions. Pivot based upon the results that you see. 13 hjps://www.leanstartupmachine.com/valida'onboard/
Adjusting the Plan Based on what you learn, you might: Stick to the plan Target another customer group Target a different need Expand or contract feature focus Change platforms or architecture Change channels Kill the idea entirely Persevere, pivot or punt. 14
Lean Canvas to dras your Business Model Draft your business case in a simple, single-page format, and adjust based upon the results of your interviews, prototypes and releases. 15 Thanks to Ash Maurya, Leanstack.com
Example Lean Canvas for Sensei Sensei is an Agile retrospecbve tool by LitheSpeed. www.senseitool.com
Risk-Driven Product Backlog Challenging & testing your assumptions Holis'c Discovery Risk- driven Product Backlog Exploratory Sprints Data- driven Sprint Review Valida'ng Product Increment Priori'ze by riskiest assump'on Include valida'on mechanisms
The MVP A Minimum Viable Product might be: Learning: Onsite observation, fake menus, ads Pitching: Preorders, comparisons, joint design Experiencing: Concierge, prototypes Later releases focus on scaling. Early releases focus on quickly & cheaply testing ideas. 18
Unbounce for Landing Pages You can create dynamic landing pages that help you tune your pitch and garner pre-orders with tools like Unbounce.
Plan Releases & Pivots with a Story Map Epic 1 Epic 2 Key Ac'vity Major Component MVP Story A1 B1 D1 Pivot Key DifferenBators A2 C1 C2 C3 Flexibility & Safety A3 B2 D1 D2 Scaling & OpBmizaBon B3 20
Exploratory Sprints Quick, cheap ways to validate your approach Holis'c Discovery Risk- driven Product Backlog Exploratory Sprints Data- driven Sprint Review Valida'ng Product Increment Team intercepts users Team helps design experiments
Concierge to Test without Coding A manual simulation of your product or service.
Balsamiq Mockups for Low- Fi Prototyping Test layouts and flows without coding or graphic design. hjp://balsamiq.com/products/mockups/
Data-Driven Sprint Review Using data to drive decisions Holis'c Discovery Risk- driven Product Backlog Exploratory Sprints Data- driven Sprint Review Valida'ng Product Increment Review experiment results Pivot, Persevere, Punt Scan for new opportuni'es
Lean Canvas as Dynamic Dashboard Think of your project as a set of small experiments. The results of these experiments should be simply stated and reviewed regularly to guide decisions about product direc'on. Thanks to Ash Maurya, author of Running Lean: hjp://www.runningleanhq.com/ 25
Pirate Metrics & Customer Funnels AcquisiBon AcBvaBon RetenBon Revenue Referral How many users are interested and find you? Preorders, signups, ad responses How is their experience when they do? Successful runs through key use case Do they stick around for the long run? 30, 60, 90 day retention by cohort Do they pay? Ratio of paying users or ROI Do they tell their friends? Successful recommendations Thanks to Dave McClure http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-version 26
Tes'ng the Pitch We originally interviewed 9 people, and 8/9 (89%) said they were very interested, but that they would greatly prefer a corporate plan to personal investment. How well did you predict your peers opinions?
Validating Product Increment Analyzing & evolving your production system Holis'c Discovery Risk- driven Product Backlog Exploratory Sprints Data- driven Sprint Review Valida'ng Product Increment Measure key usage pajerns Focus MVP on early adopters
Quan'ta've A/B & MulBvariate TesBng Split (A/B) testing randomly presents users with competing versions of specific application pages and features. See what works best by running parallel experiments Choose the winning option after appropriate time Header A B Header Sign up form Story Demo movie Demo movie Story Sign up form 58% of visitors signed up 35% of visitors signed up
A/B Tes'ng Sensei with OpBmizely We found a 60% increase in registrabons just from adding the term distributed teams to our landing page.
Zopim Live Chat We envisioned live chat to be largely a help tool, but it ended up connecbng us with our most passionate early adopters.
Thank You!
AddiBonal Learning Opportuni'es Lean Startup in the Enterprise Meetup Monthly at LitheSpeed office in Herndon, VA Lean Startup Machine Travels nationwide Lean Startup Conference Annually in San Francisco Lean + Agile Practitioner s Forum Coming soon!
Reading List Lean & Agile Innova'on Running Lean Maurya Essential Scrum Rubin The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development Vlaskovits The Lean Startup Ries Discover to Deliver Gottesdiener The Other Side of Innovation Govindarajan Four Steps to the Ephiphany Blank Business Model Generation Osterwalder
Contact Us for Further Information Arlen Bankston Managing Partner, LitheSpeed Arlen.Bankston@lithespeed.com On the Web: http://www.lithespeed.com http://www.sanjivaugustine.com "I only wish I had read this book when I started my career in software product management, or even better yet, when I was given my first project to manage. In addition to providing an excellent handbook for managing with agile software development methodologies, Managing Agile Projects offers a guide to more effective project management in many business settings." John P. Barnes, former Vice President of Product Management at Emergis, Inc. 35