Co-preparation

The Product Owner[1] (PO) meets the Team with their technical skills to define the best solution for the business case challenges. Best ideas arise in offsite meeting(s) in a relaxed and inspiring atmosphere. Various techniques are used to explore possibilities and to discover business values and ways to mitigate risks.

Why

Explore, discuss, define and prioritize the product from idea to epics and actionable user stories.

Prepare for success

  • Invite everyone that is closely involved in the project (key stakeholders, Product Owner, Development Team)
  • Make sure that participants know the goal of these meetings before they start
  • Make sure you have an experienced facilitator to prepare and run the co-preparation[2]
  • Product Owner comes prepared with business case parameters and goals, and knows which features will contribute to this business case.

How

We use a co-preparation menu from which we define the actual content of the co-preparation. Which of the Appetizers are selected, depends on the maturity of the idea, and the work that the customer already put into it. All parts of the Main Course are mandatory. Which of the Desserts are selected, is depending on which uncertainties and risks are unacceptable before starting the first sprint.

Definition of Done[3]

  • All selected parts of the co-preparation menu are executed
  • Unacceptable uncertainties & risks have been cleared
  • Initial Product Backlog has been defined
  • First release planning has been composed

Real Life Example

Before including Kabisa in the product development, a new customer had put months of preparation in the product vision with an internal taskforce. They had difficulty setting priorities and selecting a small set of functionalities for the first version of the app. We discussed their preparation, and together concluded that an assumption analysis would identify which assumptions needed to be validated first with real users. This helped a lot in prioritizing. The product idea included peer-to-peer chat functionality, partially via an existing backend of the customer. For this we ran a Proof of Concept as part of the co-preparation phase. So the entire co-preparation consisted of: assumption analysis, story mapping, wireframes, user stories, estimation, proof of concept.

Notes

  1. Product Owner - The Product Owner plays a crucial role in the development of a great software product. He or she is responsilble for maintaining the Product Backlog.
  2. Co-preparation - The Product Owner (PO) meets the Team with their technical skills to define the best solution for the business case challenges. Best ideas arise in offsite meeting(s) in a relaxed and inspiring atmosphere. Various techniques are used to explore possibilities and to discover business values and ways to mitigate risks.
  3. Definition of Done - A shared understanding of expectations that the Increment must live up to in order to be releasable into production. Managed by the Development Team.