The Scrum Sprint Burndown Chart - Every Picture Tells a Story
By Paul P Jackson

We use Agile software developments methods and, for project management, Scrum is our preferred method. Our development team are based offshore and there are challenges to making Agile work with a distributed team but it can be done (and can be fun also!). So I thought I would share a story with you one of our real Sprints as told through the Scrum Burndown chart. Why? Well, because I think we can learn a great deal from the Burndown chart and everyone has its own story to tell. Here's ours:

The Shopper Continuum
By Gavin Johnston, Two West Chief Anthropologist

To the credit of marketing, advertising, and research people the days of talking about the consumer as the sole focus of shopping activity are essentially gone. We recognize that the shopper and the consumer are not always the same. Indeed, it is often the case that they are not. The focus has shifted to the process that takes place between the first thought a consumer has about purchasing an item, all the way through the selection of that item. While this is a reasonable approach to understanding the people who buy and use a company's products, it still has one principle flaw. Namely, it focuses on individuals rather than systems of people and the behavioral and cultural drivers behind their actions. The distinction is subtle but important because it assumes the shopping experiences goes well beyond the product itself, which is largely functional, and considers the product (and brand) as a means of facilitating social interaction. In other words, it thinks about shopping as a means of establishing cultural norms, emotional bonds, and identity.

Chefs and Agile Restaurateurs

As more of our clients have moved to agile software development, we've seen a growing need for business agility: getting non-engineering functions involved earlier and more collaboratively, so that companies deliver better revenue results as well as better software. Let's make this more concrete by mapping it to the restaurant business.

Ethnography: Your Guide to Doing it Right

Introduction

Over the past decade, ethnography has been embraced by the business community. But the term "ethnography" has been used fairly loosely and expectations about the work and final outcomes vary as much as the people calling themselves ethnographers. Many researchers who feel at ease interviewing people in a "natural" setting claim to be doing ethnography but this is often not the case. Trained ethnographers do more than talk with people--they rely on a set of analytical tools that take experience and specialized training. Before deciding to use an ethnographic approach to answer your research question, it is imperative to know what to expect from a provider.

Scrum Product Owner
By Laszlo Szalvay

In the Scrum method of agile software development, there are three fundamental roles: the Product Owner, the ScrumMaster, and the team. Because it is the most demanding of the three Scrum roles, I'll begin by discussing the Product Owner.

Maximize Product Profitability as the Market Matures

An important role for the product manager (or for the product marketing manager, if that function is separate) is to obtain the maximum profit from a product during its lifecycle. There are many standard practices in maintaining a product when it is in the market: pricing adjustments, advertising and promotion, increasing penetration within the existing customer base, finding new customer segments, etc.A common practice is to release a follow-on product, often a feature enhanced/cost reduced "mid-life kicker" to keep the product competitive in the marketplace. These are all good and often necessary activities, but a commonly underexploited opportunity is to enhance the product by bundling complementary products and services in order to create and enhance the complete solution for the customer, not just the product itself.

Succeeding In Growing Your Market Share
By Tom Dougherty

How much do you want to win? Are you willing to put everything on the table and examine every opportunity for your brand to succeed in market warfare?

We all pretend to strive for victory but most companies fall far short of what it takes to actually prevail. Most brands fail to really challenge the market leader because they continue to salute sacred cows or wasteful process. They become enamored with their past successes and cling to the old business model long after it has been rendered obsolete. There are only two flags that should be saluted -- the flags of brand integrity and of customer's needs. Everything else is an obstacle and is in your way.

The Role of the Product Owner in Scrum
By Rod Claar

There has been a lot written about the role of the Product Owner (PO) in Scrum over the years and it seems to me that in the last month or so the question has received a lot of attention in blogs, twitter and other social media. I don't think there is a "best practice" answer. Let's look at what we do know and then see if we can find an answer. The goal of the PO must be to deliver the right business value. To do this they, engage the team(s) to create solutions that deliver the business value.

What is a phenomenal product manager?
An excerpt from the new book by Brian Lawley, titled The Phenomenal Product Manager: The Product Manager's Guide to Success, Job Satisfaction and Career Acceleration

If you have been in product management for a while you probably have come across a few product managers who seem to stand out. For some reason they come across as being really good at what they do, whereas other product managers seem to have little or no clue. They are the stars - the phenomenal product managers who are clearly on the road to big things in their careers.

When did customers become irrelevant?
by Paula Gray, AIPMM

In the AIPMM webinar "The Lessons of Launch", Mark Carr of CMG Partners stated that 54% of businesses do not involve customers in the new product development process. Carr said that most businesses listen to someone's "gut" in determining what customers wanted. He stated that only 1 in 10 of those new consumer products succeeds, and only 1 in 4 B-to-B products succeed. That is a tremendous correlation. Statistically, the "gut" has only a 10% success rate in consumer products and a 25% success rate for B to B. Perhaps businesses would be more successful if they listened to the ultimate purchaser of the product, the customer.