Managing Conflicting Demands When “Going Agile”

Most companies that develop software have moved toward Agile development practices in some way. There are a wide variety of implementations of Agile practices. Most are some sort of hybrid of methods, which is fine because each organization presents a different culture, different challenges, different infrastructure and different people. Over time, companies find what works best for their unique situation. Regardless of the specific practices a company uses to develop its products, the product management team is challenged to reconcile forces that pull toward the incremental, less-defined and those that pull toward the longer-term, more-defined.

Product Management does not fit cleanly into Agile development because the product manager’s role sits between different constituencies. Product managers are constantly challenged with meeting the conflicting needs of these constituencies.

·????????The Development team is in constant need of new user stories to fill sprints. They also want product managers to be on call to participate in daily stand-ups, grooming sessions and restrospectives while being ever-available to respond to questions for clarification and decisions on design ideas.

·????????The Marketing team needs to develop promotional campaigns, create collateral, plan trade shows, book speaking engagements, produce videos, buy advertising and other activities that require significant lead time and clear definition of the solution being marketed.

·????????Senior Management is focused on the big things like creation of entire new products and releases of major feature enhancements which take multiple iterations to develop. Like Marketing, they want to know exactly what the finished product is going to look like and when it’s going to be “done.”

·????????Of course, Product Management is also responsible for understanding current and emerging market needs and driving the strategic product roadmap.

It is the responsibility of product managers to reconcile these conflicting needs and to establish boundaries to keep any one of the needs from overpowering the others. Product managers playing the role of “product owner” need to be cognizant of being sucked into the development process at the cost of interacting with customers and non-customers in the market. As perpetual multi-taskers, product managers need to budget time to:

·????????Be in the market to understand what solutions will have the most impact to company revenue.

·????????Develop a strategic plan for the product line within which more tactical work, including user stories, is conducted.

·????????Analyze product revenue performance to identify opportunities for growth and areas needing remediation.

·????????Support Management and Marketing’s need for product information well in advance of the release.

To keep from getting buried in the weeds, product managers should dedicate time on their schedules to make themselves available to support the development process while reserving a large portion of the calendar to tend to more strategic activities. By empowering developers to make some decisions on their own, the Development team becomes less dependent on the product manager, freeing up time for other responsibilities.