Thanks to the Waterloo Agile/Lean Peer2Peer group for inviting me to speak in December. This presentation was intended to introduce the group to the concepts of LeanStartups and how it can put agile in context for start ups.
You often hear people focusing on the internal parts of agile. Often these are the things the scrum master is supposed to facilitate during a sprint like daily stand-up etiquette, burn down charts, planning poker, retrospective games etc. These are all useful tools but ignore the elephant in the room if you happen to be a startup: how to you build the backlog?
Even more, how do you build a backlog that will define and evolve a sustaining product in a profitable market before you run out of cash?! That, my friends is the primary challenge of a startup and so many of the rituals of agile development alone wont hep you with. I don’t intend to diminish the value of something I’ve spent the last decade learning and practicing, but in the last few years I’ve learned where it belongs relative to other important factors that can’t be ignored. If you’ve ever been the Product Owner I’m sure you’ll agree that it take a hell of a lot of effort to build and maintain a backlog including the efforts of many people.
There has been little in the way of process to address this fundamental challenge in a way that was as compatible with the style of agile development - at least until lately. This is why LeanStartups and Customer Development resonated so strongly for me.
