The role of the Product Owner in Scrum is only vaguely defined—owning the Product Backlog and representing the “customer.” In many organizations, Product Owners go it alone, trying their best to represent business needs to their teams. What’s often missing is a collaborative connection between the teams’ testers and the Product Owner—a connection in which testers help to define and refine requirements, broaden the testing landscape and align it to customer needs, provide a conduit for collaboration between the customer and the team, assure that the team is building the right thing, and help demonstrate complete features. This relationship is central to the team and facilitates transparency to help gain feedback from the entire organization. Join seasoned agile coach Bob Galen as he shares techniques for doing just this. Return with new ideas and techniques for helping your Product Owner and team deliver better received and higher value products—not just by testing but by fostering collaboration.

1.
rent Session
Presented by:
Bob Galen
Vel rs
Brought to you by:
340 Corporate Way, Suite Orange Park, FL 32073
888‐2
T7
Concur
4/8/2014
12:45 PM
“A Tester’s Guide to Collaborating
with Product Owners”
ocity Partne
300,
68‐8770 ∙ 904‐278‐0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com

2. Bob Galen
Velocity Partners
An agile methodologist, practitioner, and coach based in Cary, NC, Bob Galen helps
guide companies in their adoption of Scrum and other agile methodologies and
practices. Bob is a principal agile evangelist at Velocity Partners, a leading agile
nearshore development partner; president of RGCG; and frequent speaker on
software development, project management, software testing, and team leadership
at conferences and professional groups. He is a Certified Scrum Coach, Certified
Scrum Product Owner, and an active member of the Agile and Scrum Alliances. In
2013 Bob published Scrum Product Ownership–Balancing Value from the Inside Out.
Reach him at bob@rgalen.com.

3. 1
A Tester’s Guide to Collaborating
with Product Ownerswith Product Owners
10 Keys to Delivering Value
Bob Galen
President & Principal Consultant
RGCG, LLC
bob@rgalen.com
Introduction
Bob Galen
Independent Agile Coach (CSC) at RGCG, LLC
Principle Agile Evangelist at Velocity Partnersp g g y
Somewhere ‘north’ of 30 years overall experience ☺
Wide variety of technical stacks and business domains
Developer first, then Project Management / Leadership, then
Testing
Senior/Executive software development leadership for 20 years
Practicing formal agility since 2000
XP, Lean, Scrum, and Kanban experience
From Cary, North Carolina
Connect w/ me via LinkedIn and Twitter @bobgalen
Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC 2
Connect w/ me via LinkedIn and Twitter @bobgalen
Bias Disclaimer:
Agile is THE BEST Methodology
for Software Development…
However, NOT a Silver Bullet!

4. 2
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Outline – Myths & Realities
Introduction
1 Bridge stories1. Bridge stories
2. Help write Acceptance Tests
3. DoD accountability
4. Be the customer
5. Ask questions
6. Triad everywhere
7. Cost of quality
8 C t f t ti
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8. Cost of testing
9. Backlog as a “plan”
10. Take the PO to lunch

5. 3
Simple pattern: The Product Owner ‘Owns’ the Product
Backlog
Who owns the Backlog?
Backlog
Essential pattern
It Takes a Village to ‘Own’ the Backlog
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4 Quadrants of
Product Ownership
1. Product Manager
Product Roadmap
3. Leader
Trade-offs product balanceProduct Roadmap,
Collateral, Business Case /
ROI
Driving customer value
2. Project Manager
Product Backlog (WBS)
Trade offs, product balance
Stakeholder “management”
Member of the team;
partner with the Scrum
Master
4. Business Analystg ( )
Grooming & look-ahead
Velocity-based, Release
Planning
Goal setting, Budget
4. Business Analyst
Story writing
Acceptance
Emergence; Spikes
Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC 6

6. 4
#1, Bridge stories from
Team to the Product Owner
The key here is guidingThe key here is guiding
the translation and
execution of the user
story
Pull the Product Owner into
the sprint
Show incremental code
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Shepherd sign-off
3 Amigos-based
interactions
Nail the Demo
#1, Bridge stories from
Team to the Product Owner
Coined by George
Dinwiddie
Swarming around the
User Story by:
Developer(s)
Tester(s)
Product Owner
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During “Grooming, Sprint
Execution, Until…”Done”
Similar to Ken Pugh’s -
Triad

7. 5
#2, Help write solid
Acceptance Tests
Consider themConsider them
as “mini-contracts” or “mini-
UAT”
3-5 minimal per story
Business constraints
Functional and non-
functional
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functional
Edge and error cases
Provide hints:
Design & Test
#2, Help write solid
Acceptance Tests
As a dog owner, I want to sign-upg g p
for a kennel reservation over
Christmas so that I get a
confirmed spot
Verify individual as a registered pet owner
Verify that preferred members get 15% discount on basic service
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Verify that preferred members get 25% discount on extended services
and reservation priority over other members
Verify that past Christmas customers get reservation priority
Verify that declines get email with discount coupon for future services
Verify that sign-up process takes less than 4 minutes

8. 6
#3, Hold everyone “accountable”
to Definition of Done
It all starts in GroomingIt all starts in Grooming,
thinking of the work
cross-functionally and
with DoD in mind
Continue it in Sprint
Planning
Execute consistently; no
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Execute consistently; no
exceptions
Deliver to “Done”
Ready-Ready
Prevents
teams from
taking on
The story is well-written; and has a minimum of 5
Acceptance Tests defined
The story has been sized to fit the teams velocity &
sprint length: 1-13 points
taking on
stories that
are ill
groomed or
defined
The team has vetted the story in several grooming
sessions—it’s scope & nature is well understood
If required, the story had a research-spike to explore
(and refine) it’s architecture and design implications
The story is not “too complete”, around ~70% complete
The team understands how to approach the testing of
the stories’ functional and non-functional aspects
Any dependencies to other stories and/or teams have
been “connected” so that the story is synchronized and
Increases
sprint success
been connected so that the story is synchronized and
deliverable
The story aligns with the Sprints’ Goal and is end-to-end
demonstrable
If a “Technical Story” the story has a “Technical PO” to
provide guidance and sign-off
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9. 7
#4, Represent the
Customer
Don’t solveDon t solve
“requirements”…solve
“customer problems”
Consider usage
KISS
Deliver value; highest
i t & i it
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impact & priority
End-to-end solutions
#4, Represent the
Customer
The power of a MinimalThe power of a Minimal
Marketable Feature
The power of the
Persona
Observe the Customer
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Nordstrom Innovation
Lap:
http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=szr0ezLyQHY

10. 8
#5, Ask questions?
Be inquisitive?
Ask questionsAsk questions
Relentlessly, Constantly,
Courageously
5 – Whys
Business value?
Lean investment
Just enough and just in
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Just enough and just-in-
time
Trust your instincts, craft
Does it make sense?
#5, Ask questions?
Be inquisitive?
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11. 9
#7, What about the
Cost of Quality?
Meta-requirementsMeta requirements
Security, Performance,
Maintainability
Automation investments
Agile Automation Triangle
Inspections – pairing
DoD maturity
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DoD maturity
Avoid rework?
Yes for product, no for
experiments
Quality is a TEAM
responsibility!
A Tapestry that Includes Threads for…
Things to do… Deployment
Regulatory
Features
Value
increments
Architecture
Design
Process
Quality
g y
Dependency
Risk
Feedback
Customer
timing
Tempo
Quality
Testing
In a Context-Based
fashion…
…Guiding us
towards
customer
value
Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC 1818

12. 10
#8, What about the
Cost of Testing?
Risk-basedRisk based
Always test what’s
available
Don’t track coverage or
time
Slack time for thinking &
ti it
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creativity
Balanced across the
quadrants
3 Pillars of Agile Quality
Development & Test
Automation
• Pyramid-based Strategy:
(Unit + Cucumber +
Software Testing
• Risk-based testing:
Functional & Non-Functional
Cross-Functional Team
Practices
• Team-based Pairing
Selenium)
• Continuous Integration
• Attack technical
infrastructure in the Backlog
• Visual Feedback –
Dashboards
• Actively practice ATDD and
BDD
• Test planning @ Release &
Sprint levels
• Exploratory Testing
• Standards – checklists,
templates, repositories
• Balance across manual,
exploratory & automation
• Stop-the-Line Mindset
• Code Reviews & Standards
• Active Done-Ness
• Aggressive Refactoring of
Technical Debt
• User Stories, “3 Amigo”
based Conversations
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20
• Whole Team Ownership of “Quality”
• Building it ‘Right’; Building the ‘Right’ Thing
• Healthy – Agile Centric Metrics
• Center of Excellence or Community of Practice
• Strategic balance across 3 Pillars; Assessment, Recalibration, and Continuous Improvement

13. 11
#9, The Backlog is a “Plan”
help focus it towards Release!
Ask for and define aAsk for and define a
Release Train
Encourage Release
Planning
Establish “hardening”
activities
I t ti il t
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Integration milestones –
working code
Release Train Management
Iterative model with a release
targetg
Product centric
Focused on a production
push/release
Synchronized Sprints across
teams
Some teams are un-
synchronized, but leads to less
efficient cross-team (product)
Notion of a “Hardening Sprint”
Focused more on Integration &
Regression testing
Assumption that it’s mostly
automated
Environment promotion
Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC
(p )
interactions
Continuous Integration is the
glue
Including automated unit and
feature tests; partial regression
Define a final Hardening Sprint
where the product is readied
for release
Documentation, Support,
Compliance, UAT, Training
22

14. 12
3 Tiered, Multi Method (Kanban & Scrum)
Enterprise Workflow
Inception Construction TransitionElaboration
EpicEpic
Epic
Kanban @
Portfolio-level
Arch & Design Build & Test Cont. DeployAnalysis
Feature
Feature
EpicEpic
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Kanban @
Project-level
Product Backlog
Story Task
Task
Task
Task
TaskTaskTask
Sprint Backlog WIP Done
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Scrum @
Execution-
level
23Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC
#10, Get to know your
Product Owner
Have lunchHave lunch
Discuss the competitive
landscape, the Market
Customer challenges
MoSCoW in operation
Commitments &
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Pressure
Vision & Mission; what
does “success” look like?

15. 13
Wrapping up…
Helping the Product Owner to build the “Right Thing”
And
Helping the Team to build “Things Right”
Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC 25
Contact Info
Bob Galen
Principal Consultant,
RGalen Consulting Group, L.L.C.
Experience-driven agile focused training,
coaching & consulting
Cell: (919) 272-0719
bob@rgalen.com www.rgalen.com
bgalen@velocitypartners.net www.velocitypartners.net
BlogsBlogs
Project Times - http://www.projecttimes.com/robert-galen/
BA Times - http://www.batimes.com/robert-galen/
Podcast on all things ‘agile’ - http://www.meta-cast.com/
26Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC 26