Facilitator’s Notes - Drone Mystery

This Agile Decision Game, Drone Mystery, takes its name from blatantly capitalizing on that weird news cycle from a short time ago with all the mysterious drones around New Jersey. One theory I found amusing was that after it started to gain media attention, a bunch of other amateur drone enthusiasts started flying their own drones in an attempt to chase the mystery drones. But, ultimately, that led to them freaking themselves and each other out? So for this decision forcing case, I wanted to create something that had a similar soon-to-be-flooded market sense of urgency while also giving participants some math problems to work out.

Crunching the numbers can be a very important part of a Product Manager or Product Owners job. For these decision forcing cases, it can also be a very psychologically engaging approach to delivering case method learning to participants. Encourage participants to work things out with some note paper, it helps access different areas of their brain that they might not use in their role or they use other tools to easily calculate things. As the facilitator, when they are stating their solutions and approaches, try to find a tool to visually track their calculations and trains of thought for the rest of the group. The arithmetic side of things might not be every participant’s favorite thing–but you’re there to challenge them to experience difficult thinking situations.

In this scenario, participants must deeply understand the needs of your company's residential and commercial clients to choose the product that best addresses their pain points. This means balancing immediate customer demands with long-term value creation, ensuring the chosen solution aligns with what customers truly need, not just what they say they want. Participants should consider how they might roll out their chosen product incrementally, starting with a basic version and refining it based on customer input. This scenario forces participants to think creatively about how to adapt their strategy, whether by differentiating their offering, speeding up development, or exploring new opportunities.

Participants must evaluate the three options based on budget, resources, and potential ROI, deciding which one offers the most value with the least effort. This mirrors the real-world challenge of managing a product backlog, where not everything can be done at once.

This Agile Decision Game was not based on an actual scenario, so there is no real world solution to share.

This scenario can play out over 45 minutes to an hour with a group. Really challenge people to show their numbers and help visualize how they plan to allocate their time, budget, resources, and people.

Avoid calling on anyone in a more experienced Product role for some of the initial responses. If similar solutions are being suggested, try to prompt further discussion using these questions:

• This case does not mention a time frame. How would the seasons affect the rollout of your product, given that this is a landscaping company? When does their go to market strategy align with the calendar and customer demands?
• How might the needs of residential customers differ from those of commercial clients, and how would that influence your decision??
• What additional data or customer feedback would you need to validate the market potential of each option?
• How would you calculate the break-even point for each option, and how does that impact your decision??
• What hidden costs (e.g., training, customer support) might arise from each option, and how would you account for them???
• What trade-offs would you make if you had to cut costs further to stay within budget???
• What are the biggest risks associated with each option, and how would you mitigate them???
• How would you handle a scenario where the chosen product underperforms in the market???
• What steps would you take to ensure the new product can scale as the company grows??
• What KPIs would you use to measure the success of the new product, and how would you track them???
• How would you communicate progress and setbacks to stakeholders throughout the development process?

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