Ant Boobier discusses creating a product playbook at Bank of New Zealand to standardize their agile practices and development processes. They tried dual track development with two teams working separately but it led to clashes. They shifted to having one empirical track with the whole team having ownership. They created a playbook test to make it self-explanatory, endorsed by key areas, and enjoyable to read. It brings together best practices in an easy to understand framework that the team adopted and adapted. The playbook treats products like pets to question thinking and say no to features tangential to the main product.

1. Ant Boobier
Practices Lead, Bank of New Zealand (BNZ)
Nomad8
ant@nomad8.com
@antboobier
All track development
(or how we dropped the collective ego
and created a product playbook!)

4. My agile egoAgile Ego

5. Who are BNZ

6. Product, UX and development, was just a little bit awkward….

7. “Product Management
is not just about
building things, it’s
about solving
problems”
Melissa Perri

8. 1. Whole team has ownership
2. Focus on creating an outcome
3. Do the smallest amount of work possible to start
measuring change
What Product Management means to us…

10. Dual track development is 2 activities happening
continuously and in tandem

11. Success !
(2 teams to 3 tribes)

12. /kənˈfjuːʒ(ə)n/
(confusion)

13. A clash of collective egos
Duel Track

14. How I hoped
people saw me
AGILE !
How I sometimes
came across

15. You can’t read the label
of the jar you’re in

16. How can I be
the conscience
for the team?

17. “we are often
making this
mistake of
conflating scaling
and spreading”
David Hussman
(The Dude)

18. @antboobier

19. “Don’t [insert word*] how, if
you don’t understand the why”
Explain
Advise
Copy
Follow
*

20. to collaborate on a
change!
[please bring your expertise]

21. This is a playbook
This is not a playbook…

22. The Playbook test
Be understood by anyone who picks it
up, so it needs to be..
• no more than 30 pages
• self explanatory
• endorsed by key skill-set areas
• be enjoyable to read

23. 1. If it does not
fit in your head,
don’t use it !

24. Dual-track felt and looked like
separate ‘duelling’ tracks

26. It’s a one for all empirical track

28. 2. Acknowledge and mash up the mindsets

29. Think agile, but you don’t
always have to ‘talk’ agile

30. AGILE
HAS NO BRAIN
PLEASE USE
YOUR OWN
Original image source for inspiration unknown :-(

32. 3. Keep it…
and invite input from experts

33. • Guided by a specialist
• Involve wider product team
• Tracked on team board
• Time boxed

35. UX Researcher
Team Designer
Data Analytics team
Developer
Product Owner
Team Designer
Content
Developer
Dev team
Content and Comms
Team Designer
Risk
Tribe PM
Who do
you
probably
need to
get
involved?

36. UX Researcher
Team Designer
Data Analytics team
Developer
Product Owner
Team Designer
Content
Developer
Dev team
Content and Comms
Team Designer
Risk
Tribe PM
Who do
you
probably
need to
get
involved?

37. You want us to do what ?!!!!

38. “Your work is
going to fill a
large part of your
life, and the only
way to be truly
satisfied is to do
what you believe
is great work.
And the only way
to do great work
is to love what
you do”

39. 4. Say No!
treat your Product Playbook like your Product

40. “Building a great
product isn’t
about creating
tons of tactically
useful features
which are
tangentially
related”
Des Traynor
(Intercom on Product Management)

41. house petsFeatures are like…

42. 5. Question the thinking,
not the answer

44. Disciplined steps

46. Who is your
customer ?What
assumptions
do you
have?
How will you
know you are
being successful?
What does yournext experimentlook like?
Who will lead the
experiment?
Who do you need
to involve?

49. “[it] brings together all the
best parts of our practices in
an easy to understand way,
providing a framework that
our team have adopted and
then adapted”
Penny Goodwin,
Xerofox clan PO

50. Team effort !

51. Thanks !
Ant Boobier
Practices Lead, Bank of New Zealand (BNZ)
Nomad8
ant@nomad8.com
@antboobier