John Cutler | Senior Product Manager | Pendo.io | @johncutlefish

Not An Afterthought: Interweaving Measurement Into User Stories

where stories go to die …where we get things donewhere we shuffle things constantly

Backlog The SprintUser Story Black Hole

I wanted to build stuff people use … that they value. But then I just checked out

Sell. Sell. Ship. Ship. Guess. Guess. New Project. Guess

It’s easy to start phoning it in …

Test Coverage

Defects over time

Budget vs. actual cost

Test pass/fail over time

Iteration burdown

Velocity

Planned vs. actual release dates

Individual hours per iteration/week

Cumulative flow chart

Work-in-Process (WIP)

Apparently, I’m being measured. Does the

Product Manager have a “passing test”?

Roadmap ReviewMy idea! My idea!

My idea!

My idea! My idea!My idea!

As a product manager, I can see the [Feature Name] feature finished in two weeks, so that I can approve itSadly, sometimes this happens in the real world

Idea

Validate Pain

Talk To Them

Sell

Sell

Hurry

BuildScale

Execute

Whoops

Boom!

Another Miss

UX Debt

SilosFeature Soup

Growth Slows

Hurry

And um, product, can you innovate? Optimize? And do it on budget?

Align

Intuition Tech Debt

Restructure

Measurement Debt Rocket ShipConsultantsLinkedIn

Learning Debt

Time to be data-driven

Too littleToo late

Learning

ExperimentIterate

TestExploreTinker

Mission

vsShipPlan

CommitAccountability

VelocityFeature

Consider the power of words.

DATALEARNING CONTROLIMPACT

INNOVATIONPREDICTABILITY

BLAME

Trust?

VALIDATIONITERATION CONFIRMATION

Y N

CONVERGE

DIVERGE

EXPLOITEXPLORE

Cast a wide net

Validate learnings

Try various solutions

Converge on solution

Conversations

StoriesDetails

For Perspective

To Explore

Arc

Drama

Actors

User Story

Pictures

Safety

Diversity

Converge

Diverge

Time

Sequence

Place

PainEnemies

Desires

not a requirement

Given [Context] When [Event] Then [Outcome]

Dan North and Chris Matts as part of Behavior-Driven Development (BDD).

Example: GIVEN that people are

perpetually in need of social

gratification, AND THAT they enjoy

seeing news from their friends,

WHEN they encounter a “feed” of

friend related news-snippets, THEN

they will spend hours online, and

may even click on ads.

As a user a [who], I want [outcome], so

that [some reason] …

Add this to dashboard

Add tracking to the click of this on that

Verify that we are logging refreshes

I need to pull this graph once a week for my meeting

Um. Hey Team. When you’re done with the story, I might have some

So I’ve got this story …

Happier Relationship

Less Stressed

Higher Quality Sleep

Exercise

Mattress

More Exercise

Better Diet

More Sleep

Less Sugar

More Water

Bit More Intensity

Work

Work Less

More Breaks

More Us Time

Renewals

NPS

Divorce?

Break T/day

Mg/meal

Kg Per Lift

Calories Hours

Time w/o Kids

Satisfaction Rating

L/day

Food Log

VO2max

Blood Pressure

Growth in 7d avg sleep

Morning Check In

NPS

wk/wk decrease

Lagging LeadingWhy What

Outcome Experiment

Plan Build Build Build Ship

Plan Build Build Ship

We will “listen” for feedback

Plan

Let’s get “ahead” of the next project

Feature A

Feature B

Feature C

Measure

A Powerful Mission

Measure

Learn Learn Learn

Build

Ship Ship Ship Ship Ship

Learn

PlanPlanPlanPlanPlanPlan

Um …Measure

Where’s Feature A?

Can I see?

Measurement and learning happens continuously. Not sporadically

Learn

Learning is siloed, or doesn’t happen at all …

comparativeunderstandable

ratio or a ratechange how you behave

You can iterate on this. You won’t get it right the first time …

DATALEARNING CONTROLIMPACT

INNOVATIONPREDICTABILITY

BLAME

Trust?

VALIDATIONITERATION CONFIRMATION

Y N

Let’s Chat! Questions?