Extraordinary Value: The XP Customer

Bill Wake William.Wake@acm.orgXP Day, Washington, DC

9-24-05

Copyright 2005, William C. Wake. All rights reserved.

No Philosopher’s Stone

The Next Hill

What XP Wants in a Customer

Visionary Domain Expert MBA (Marketing,

Finance)

Story Teller

UI Genius Expert Tester Empath Omniscient -or- Psychic

Challenge

Where do good customers come from?

A Framework (DRAFT)

1. Vision

Customer/Product Owner

6. Entrepreneurship

5. Value

4. Scope

3. Sustainability

2. Relationships

Process

1. Vision

Where are we going?• Charter

• Vision Statement

• Elevator Speech

Where are we?• Informative workspace

Moore’s Elevator Speech

For target who needs something,

the product is a category that benefit.

Unlike competitor, our product differentiator.

Where Are We? XP and Scrum

XP Release Plan

Sprint 1

Story

Story

Story

Sprint 2

Story

Story …

Scrum Product Backlog

Calendars

This Year Five-Year Plan

Year Prod 1 Prod 2 Prod 3

2005 Develop Maintain

2006 Develop Retire Initiate

2007New version

Develop

2008 Maintain Develop

2009 Maintain Develop

Jan: Editing

Feb: Export

Mar: Styles

Apr: XLMay: Rename

June: Critic

July: Trade Show

Aug: Search

Sept: CM

Oct: Columns

Nov: Critic 2

Dec: Refactor

Version Plan (London Subway Diagram)

Depth Chart

Edit Organize Refactor Critic

Insert Outline Rename FixtureUnknown Fixture

Table editing ReorganizeRename Column

Unknown Column

Search Sharing Insert Column Cell Value

StylesRemove Column

Summary Tables

Printing

Test in Place

FDD Parking Lot

From http://www.featuredrivendevelopment.com/node/630

FDD Parking Lot

See a real example at http://www.featuredrivendevelopment.com/node/630

Editing (ED)

Cursor(15)75%

Jan 06 Sep 06

Wrap(5)

100%

Feb 06

Table(5)

70%

Sep 06

Cell(5)0%

In-File(5)

50%

Mar 06 Jun 06

Global(10)10%

Sep 06

Regex(5)

100%

Oct 06

Substitute(11)60%

Write(15)75%

Jan 06 Sep 06

Wrap(5)

25%

Mar 06

Table(5)

100%

Jun 06

Cell(5)

80%

Search (SR)

Refactor (RF)

Export (EX) Project (PJ)

2. Relationships

Internal• Whole Team

• Sit Together External

• Users

• Purchasers

• Sales Channel

• Researchers

• Competitors

• …

3. Sustainability

Energized Work Education Reflection Vacation

4. Scope

Whole Product / Whole Experience Stories

• Past, Present, Future

• “Ready”

• The Story Pipeline

Flexibility Splitting Stories

Past, Present, Future Retain Past Value

• Escrow• Support• Regression Tests

Build Present Value• Themes• Stories• Tests

Enable Future Value• Future Stories• Research, Spike

Are You Ready to Rumble?

Card

Idea

Ron Jeffries’ 3 C’s

Mockup or Paper Prototype

Usability Test

Conversation

Confirmation

SpikeResearch

The Story Pipeline: Just-In-Time

Fe

we

r Quantity

Mo

reF

uzz

y Clarity

Cle

ar Idea

s

Goo

d Id

eas

Val

idat

ing

In p

rogr

ess

Rea

dy to

dev

elop

Rea

dy to

dis

cuss

300 100 20 0* 3 2

Hold on Loosely

Be specific Don’t deny Show us, don’t tell us Play the moment Play it legitimately (no joking) Familiarity and surprise (rule of 3)

Andy Goldberg, Improv Comedy

Splitting Stories

Easier

Research

Manual

Buy

Build

Batch

Single-User

API only

Character UI

Generic UI

Harder

Action

Automated

Build

Buy

Online

Multi-User

User interface

GUI

Custom UI

Easier

Few features

Static

Transient

Less “ilities”

e.g., slower

Ignore errors

Main case

0

1

One level

Base case

Harder

Many features

Dynamic

Persistent

More “ilities”

e.g., faster

Handle errors

Alternate flows

1

Many

All levels

General case

5. Value

Lean Thinking• Waste, Flow

Market Value• MMF

• Kano Model

Balance Value Gradients

MMF = Minimal Marketable Feature

See Software by Numbers Competitive differentiation Revenue generation Cost saving Brand projection Enhanced loyalty

Kano Model

Hygiene Factors• Reject if not present

Satisfiers• More is better

Delighters• Unexpected

• Might not be valued until used

Balance: The Hot Seat

Importance of feature to user/purchaser Risk Build success/confidence Learn something Encourage communication Build capacity Add variety

It’s Easy to Conflate…

Expected value Actual value Intrinsic difficulty Difficulty for us Actual effort

Value Gradients

Co-create solutions See value in partial

solutions Sense value gradients

• S curve Pareto principle (80-

20 rule) often applies Cooperate to find

surprise peaks

Benefit

Cost

Benefit / Cost

Original Nearby peak

6. Entrepreneurship Portfolio Business Case / Cost-Benefit Analysis Market Sense

• Segmentation, channels, sustaining/disruptive, crossing the chasm, etc.

Deal Structure• Negotiated Scope Contract• Pay Per Use• Real Customer Involvement• Incremental / Daily Deployment

Intuition !

Cost-Benefit Analysis: Compare…

“Four developers implementing whatever they can in the next 6 months.” -versus-

Theme

Editing

Printing

Critic

Total

Net benefit

Cost

$(150K)

(100K)

(50K)

$(300K)

======>

Benefit

$300K new sales

125K cost savings

75K branding

$500K

$200K in 6 months

Stake a Claim!

Better to live with concrete claims that can be proven wrong…

…than fuzzy thinking and muddling along in the same direction as always.

Don’t go overboard – but keep clear on the big picture.

Intuition

Remember – there’s no software philosopher’s stone!

A Framework (DRAFT)

1. Vision

Customer/Product Owner

6. Entrepreneurship

5. Value

4. Scope

3. Sustainability

2. Relationships

Process

What About Tomorrow?

Thank your customer! Add a new practice, such as…

• Customer testing

• Informative workspace – the big picture

• Daily deployment

• Needn’t get there in one leap

Contribute back to the agile community• What can we all learn from your team?

Can we usefully package these ideas?

Thank you!

Bill Wake

William.Wake@acm.org

http://www.xp123.com