Radical Roadmapping - Creating Synchronized Agile Product and Technology Roadmaps

Howdy all:

As mentioned back in December, I was selected to present at the amazing Keep Austin Agile 2016 Conference that which I've learned in creating multiple roadmaps that synchronize product innovation with technology improvements both from a platform and a DevOps perspective (among others).  I also had the opportunity to present this at the Agile Austin Product SIG meeting in May as well as Product Camp 17 in August.  Cool!

My offer to present this content to individuals and companies has been well-received and I had a chance to do that as well a few times and am continuing to share what I've learned originally as well as the ongoing discussions I've had in the community.  Double cool!  Note, this offer is still open!

Here's the latest version of the presentation from SlideShare:

Radical Roadmapping - Creating Synchronized Agile Product and Technology Roadmaps PCA17 from Matt Roberts

I'm always looking for more feedback, so please feel free to reach out to me for engaging discussions in bridging the gaps that frequently exist between various stakeholders in a product development organization.  It's my passion to help us all work #bettertogether!

~m@

Radical Roadmapping - Creating Synchronized Agile Product and Technology Roadmaps

Hi all:

The goals of creating a roadmap start out well enough--let's give our customers and stakeholders a picture of the future and get them excited about what we're going to deliver in the future.  However, the implementation generally fails to delight.  They are developed in a silo, are considered by many to be a long-term contracted commitment, and are incomplete.   They generally don't give visibility to the exciting and enabling technology and operations/devops changes that are necessary to achieve much of the innovation and major organizational goals.  Beyond basic technical debt, these are large changes that must be made in concert between the business (product/customers) and the technology (development, devops, ops, security, etc.) teams and there is opportunity for awesome alignment!

Another example of awesome alignment |  Photo by The U.S. Army / CC BY

At Socialware I was responsible for serving all of these groups and developed a passion for solving this problem as a whole.  This presentation will cover what I learned and give participants real-world examples they can take away.

I just submitted the this to the Keep Austin Agile 2016 Conference.  It's tough to get selected as this is a world-class event with a small acceptance rate.  However, I'm really looking forward to sharing it if given the opportunity!

Here's the title:  

Radical Roadmapping - Creating Synchronized Agile Product and Technology Roadmaps

Here's the abstract:

This presentation will discuss why a company would create and maintain three major artifacts (innovation roadmap, infrastructure/platform roadmap, and operations/DevOps roadmap) as well as the process to do so.  Further it will cover how to synchronize them in order to move away from making OR decisions to making AND decisions that will please all stakeholders. It will also discuss key cultural changes that must be present in order to achieve maximum benefit from this approach and challenges experienced along the way to making this a reality at Socialware, a SaaS product company.  Finally, this will include real world examples of the evolution of these roadmaps over 18 months that participants can take away and use as guidelines for doing so.

This concept is RADICAL as it is innovative in both its novel approach and ability to drive enormously positive organizational agility.

Of course, in Matt's usual energetic* style, there will be tangents, humorous self-deprecating references of learning (aka failure), and time for participants to describe how this would "never work" in their organization coupled with Matt's re-framing to help them understand how it just might.

*Best feedback comment ever received in his Keep Austin Agile 2015 presentation on Continuous Capacity Planning: "Man, this guy has been drinking way too much coffee for a 4:00 PM presentation!"

Next Steps

Now to create the content based on the real world examples and learning with the team at Socialware--I'll continue meeting with folks in the community, sharing what I have so far and refining it as I go.  If you're interested in this concept, please let me know--I'd love to share my ideas!

~m@

Introduction to David Hussman (The Dude) at the Agile Austin 2012 Conference

With apologies to the Cohen brothers, my modifications in italics.  

Way up North there was this fella I wanna tell ya about. Goes by the name of David Hussman. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. See, this Hussman, he called himself "The Dude". Now, "Dude" - there's a name no man would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to some. And a lot about where he keynoted, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place so darned interestin'.

See, they call Austin the "Capitol of Live Music"; but I didn't find it to be that, exactly. But I'll allow it as there are some nice clubs there. 'Course I ain't never been to London, and I ain't never seen France. And I ain't never seen no queen in her damned undies, so the feller says. But I'll tell you what - after seeing Austin, and this here Agile Austin 2012 Conference about to unfold, well, I guess I seen somethin' every bit as stupefyin' as you'd seen in any of them other places. And in English, too. So I can die with a smile on my face, without feelin' like the good Lord gypped me.

Now this here Agile Austin Conference about to unfold took place in the early '10s - just about the time that agile adoption hit its stride, but people were starting to miss the point. I only mention it because sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? Sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here - the Dude from Minneapolis. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude. The Dude, from Minneapolis. And even if he's an agile man - and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the agilist in all of Minneapolis, which would place him high in the runnin' for agilst worldwide. Sometimes there's a man, sometimes, there's a man. Well, I lost my train of thought here. But... aw, hell. I've done introduced it enough.  

AgileAustin Conference Pitfall! Theme

About a month ago, the AgileAustin Conference Team was discussing various ideas on themes for the conference.  Janelle Klein originally had some ideas around problems with trying to adopt "A"gile (as opposed to agile--more on that later).  Paraphrasing her idea, it would be framed as a conference on Agile Problems.  I thought that was a brilliant idea as we've seen so many challenges on so many levels over time.  However, the consensus from the conference team was that it may not be inclusive enough or have more of a negative focus.

So, I had a problem that needed fixing, and harkening back to the 1980's where the A-Team could solve anything, I decided to call upon that golden era with a single word that evokes memories of massive problems overcome and treasure gained, all under 2KB of RAM--"Pitfall!"

Here was my concept drawing that I doodled during the meeting:



I threw it up on the whiteboard to see what everyone thought.  A lot of folks in the room identified with it and really liked it.  We delved into the various aspects of what it meant, and we started tweaking the concept.  I originally wrote "For Use by Intermediate and Experienced Teams" but was swayed by folks who thought we could be more inclusive, so I wrote "For Use in Learning Agile Organizations." I realize I was trying to focus our conference on the "swingers" to focus our efforts in the conference.  However, when I heard how many were planning to attend that were very new to agile concepts, I changed my mind.  There will ALWAYS be pitfalls for new teams running into that brick wall or teams that had been swinging through the jungle for a while.

The theming is excellent--gold bars (e.g. technical debt reduction, cost-of-delay value measurement, exploiting variability for profit), brick walls ("doing" vs. "being" agile, queues, siloed knowledge, lack of transparency), logs (technical debt, not focusing on engineering principles, work-in-process, beauracratic processes), aligators, scorpions, pits...It's a rich area for metaphor to say the least.

We ended with a decision that this might not be appropriate for a main conference theme, but it could certainly work for one of the four conference tracks.  I'm happy with that, especially given my recent thoughts on the "Mix Tape" Open Space.

I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks here!

Oh, and here's a simulation of how I spent a great deal of time in the mid-1980s. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhXMYw1lXY0




@MulticastMatt

AgileAustin Conference 2012 - "Mix Tape" - Does anyone have Open Space experience?

There are some really exciting things happening with the conference planning and things are proceeding nicely.  I noticed however that the team had initially been struggling with some of the following challenges:

-          Should it be paid vs. free?

-          Should it be on a Friday or Saturday?

-          Should it be content tracks or Open Space / Unconference?

-          What should our theme or themes be?

It dawned on me that AND is often more helpful than OR, so I came up with a proposal (enclosed) for a Saturday Open Space that would be free for all conference participants.  It would also be free for anyone else who wanted to attend that was not a paid conference attendee J

The theme is “mix tape” (80’s lingo—it could be “mashup” 00’s lingo) where the goal would be to have every session be a mix of at least two (more = better) disciplines getting together to achieve agility.  These can be cross-functional, cross-organizational, etc.  The classic example is something like DevOps, but what about UX and QA, executives and individual contributors, technical writers and salesfolk, chip designers and product marketing folks?  It could also be a conference track in and of itself and the open space could riff off of that.  Think about it—one day of presentations/workshops, and the next day of engaged discussions. To me, this is a really exciting idea.

In my typical style, I have signed up to run this if no one else does.  However, seeing as I’ve never run an open space conference before it would be really nice if there was someone in the community who had the experience and wanted to partner with me in this effort. 

Please let me know if this strikes your fancy and you have some relevant experience in doing this type of thing.  As usual, we’ll have all the logistical support (room, food, sponsor, etc.) from AgileAustin.

Thanks everyone!

@MulticastMatt