Don't Let Tech Debt Sink Your Roadmap! (ProductCamp Boston 2018)
- 1. Don’t LetTech Debt SinkYour Roadmap! Beth Linker ProductCamp Boston May 12, 2018
- 2. Beth Linker * Sr. Dir. of Prod Mgmt @ Acquia (we’re hiring!) * Former software engineer/architect
- 3. Who IsThisTalk For? × Product managers working on complex software products × Product managers who want to better understand their technical teams’ challenges × Product managers who feel a sense of despair when they ask their technical teams for estimates
- 4. Tech Debt Defined × Previous technical decisions (or non- decisions) that are no longer working for you × //TODO: Clean this up later!!!
- 5. Symptoms ofTech Debt × Time to roll out new releases goes up × Changes break in production because they’re harder to test × Onboarding new engineers takes a really long time × Experienced engineers are frustrated and unhappy × New features seem impossible
- 6. Origins ofTech Debt × Sometimes you take on tech debt in order to hit a critical business target × Most of the time it’s not that calculated Source: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebtQuadrant.html
- 7. Everybody’s GotTech Debt × Commercial success leaves tech debt in its wake × Fast growth × Demanding customers × Nobody gets to the Magic Quadrant without tech debt Tech Debt Tech Debt Tech Debt Tech Debt
- 8. How Engineers Feel AboutTech Debt × “It still works, but I don’t know why” × ”We need to fix this” × “It’s so ugly!” × ”Give us some time to get this right"
- 9. How The Business Thinks About Tech Debt
- 10. Product Management is uniquely positioned to navigate through this mess
- 11. Three Easy WaysTo Fail Your Approach How It Goes Horribly Wrong • “We need to keep building features, we don’t have time to fix that stuff” • Trust breaks down • Nothing gets shipped • “The engineers say we need to take a year to fix the old stuff” • The business gets impatient halfway through • “We’ll be able to do really great things after we get to this new architecture, just bear with us for a year” • Customers get impatient • The market moves on and you’re building an outdated solution
- 12. WhatTo Do Instead × “Project Portfolio” approach × Diversification is your friend × QuickWins × Big Bets × Low+Slow Projects
- 13. Quick Wins × Top customer problems × Velocity accelerators × Customer success pain points × Almost-finished projects that need a little more work
- 14. Big Bets × What are the key things that would radically improve your customers’ experience? × What changes need to happen to make those things possible? × How are you going to get your current customers there? × How can you break it down so it’s actionable and show progress every quarter?
- 15. Low+Slow Projects × These take patience but can give you a great payoff when you finish them × Put a small team on something and don’t interrupt them OR × Have a larger team reserve a few story points per sprint to chip away at a well-defined goal × Do a low-key rollout and demonstrate some results
- 16. Putting It AllTogether × Use your roadmap to sell the whole portfolio to your stakeholders: × Quick wins build confidence and buy you more time for the big bets × Big bets justify the investment and motivate the teams × Low and slow projects get important things done without a lot of fuss
- 17. Three KeyTake-Aways × Tech debt challenges are really hard and also really common - you’re not alone! × Empathize with your engineers, your customers, and your business stakeholders × Use a project portfolio to balance competing needs and get everyone aligned to move forward
- 18. Thanks for listening! Any questions? You can find me at @blinker blinker@gmail.com