Customers & Business Value

Producer: Greg Goodman (producer) Genesis10
Assistant: Jen Kintzle (producer) Kintzle Consulting LLC

As an antithesis to the “if we build it, they will come” approach of product development; Apple’s success is often attributed to an organization that is hyper-effective at creating value – business and otherwise – for their customers. ‘Appleonians’ don’t build products, they solve problems, they meet needs and they create value. Teams are challenged daily to accomplish the same for our customers. Indeed, agile methods provide us excellent tools for pursuing just that. But exactly, how do we determine what’s the ‘right thing to build next?” How do we define and create business value for our customers?

The Customer and Business Value Stage seeks to champion the experiences, methods, techniques, processes, and metrics (and perhaps a little common sense!) the Agile community has developed to help answer these crucial questions. We’re seeking submissions that help define the state of the art when it comes to customers and business value, or at least help us achieve the next level in our journey. Specifically, this stage will focus on how best to work with customers in order to understand the problem being solved by the project and determine which features create the most business value.

Reviewers

Josh Jones (reviewer) Centrifugal Knowledge Consulting, LLC
Ali Smith (reviewer) Systems Source, Inc
Kent McDonald (reviewer) Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield
Jeff Howey (reviewer) MapQuest
Shane Hastie (reviewer) Software Education

Sessions

TimeTitlePresentersTypeRoom
Monday 11:00-12:30Agile Grows up: The Agile Business Analyst Steve Adolph (producer)TutorialColumbus IJ
Monday 11:00-12:30Workflow is Orthogonal to Schedule Mary PoppendieckTalkGrand Ballroom F
Monday 14:00-15:30Value or Velocity? Brandon Carlson (reviewer)TalkColumbus IJ
Tuesday 11:00-12:30Release Planning (The Small Card Game): Discover What Works Chet Hendrickson (reviewer), Ron Jeffries (reviewer)TutorialColumbus IJ
Tuesday 14:00-17:30User Stories for Agile Requirements Mike CohnTutorialColumbus IJ
Wednesday 14:00-15:30“Flirting” With Your Customers Jenni Dow, Ole JepsenTutorialColumbus IJ
Wednesday 16:00-16:45Color Modeling Improv David Anderson (reviewer), Daniel VacantiDemonstrationColumbus IJ
Wednesday 16:45-17:30Surviving the Economic Downturn Justin Davis, Tim AndersenExperience reportColumbus IJ
Thursday 09:00-10:30Feature Injection A Gentle Introduction Kent McDonald (reviewer), Chris Matts (reviewer)WorkshopColumbus IJ
Thursday 11:00-12:30Beyond User Stories: Identifying Missing Links in Your Product Backlog Ellen Gottesdiener (reviewer)TutorialColumbus IJ
Thursday 14:00-15:30A Business Value Focused Model for Story Identification & Prioritisation Shane Hastie (reviewer)TutorialColumbus IJ
Thursday 14:00-17:30Prioritizing for Profit Luke HohmannTutorialRegency A
Thursday 16:00-16:45How to sell a traditional client on an agile project plan Arin SimeTalkColumbus IJ
Thursday 16:45-17:30The Failure of the Offshore Experiment Beth CohenExperience reportColumbus IJ