Minimally Marketable Features Applied in a Cisco Lean Startup - Robert Frohman


Details
Our May Enterprise Agile Meetup continues our emphasis on practical, applicable discussions. We are proud to feature Robert Frohman who is the founder of Co8 Group: https://www.co8group.com/about-us
Topic: Minimally Marketable Features Applied in a Cisco Lean Startup
Abstract: See a real world example of the application of minimally marketable features. Further, see how feature flow can be managed using kanban and decoupled from the individual practices being used by the engineering teams (scrum in this case). The intended format is a combination of presentation and Q&A for gaining specific insights into practical application on the ground. Also attendees can learn about how to use measurement to assess progress empirically.
Description: The Project Lockhart team was stacked with high performers and chartered with a clear mission, to simplify, unify, and orchestrate firewall security policy, for Cisco security products, from the cloud. We had organized around core agile principles, choosing scrum, and were executing one week sprints with two teams. The team had embraced CI/CD, delivering sprint increments every week to production in the cloud. We had supportive and engaged leadership. We were ready to build. The challenge we faced was as mundane as it was difficult to solve in practice. There was a lot of pressure on the team to execute and this coupled with inadequate backlog decomposition and refinement practices resulted in churn, inefficiency, and lack of alignment.
Learning Outcomes:
How to develop Minimally Marketable Features
How to use Minimally Marketable Features to develop a Product Backlog/Roadmap
How to measure progress at the program level using Minimally Marketable Features
Learn how a Cisco lean start-up used Minimally Marketable Features, functioning as a small product team
Pre-requisite Knowledge: Attendees should have exposure to the traditional challenges facing product development organizations especially related to the conflict between product and engineering. Basic knowledge of kanban would be helpful.
A Little About Rob:
Rob brings his innovation and leadership to help companies develop and improve lean agile practices (Agility Transformation). Rob leverages his highly technical background and keen ability to get to the core of an organizations challenges to guide companies through successful transformations. Ask Rob about Design Thinking.
Rob is an accomplished trainer - classes (including Certified Scrum@Scale Practitioner (CSaSP) - 2-day May 7-8) during the week of the Meetup can be found here: https://co8group.arlo.co/w/upcoming/
Our schedule:
6:00 – 6:20 Arrivals, Networking, Food
6:20 – 6:30 Announcements, Introductions
6:30 – 7:30 Presentation/Workshop/Hands-on Activities led by presenter
7:30 – 8:00 Wrap-up, Informal, Q&A and Networking

Minimally Marketable Features Applied in a Cisco Lean Startup - Robert Frohman