What are possibilities to build a product strategy, slice down your product requirements and structure your backlog in order to increase impact for your customer?
This is the question that I discussed with Carolin Salz back in May this year. For more than one year Carolin and I are frequently exchanging on possibilities and ways how to use agile and lean development principles in non-IT industries in order to create new ways of developing value sooner. We worked together on coaching strategies for (hardware) product owners and structuring product portfolios according to Lean and Agile principles.
Carolin has a very pragmatic way of approaching Agile and Lean, what makes is so valuable to discuss with her hands-on topics. But what I find most interesting on her work is that she supports companies where you might not even expect agile development – like carpenters or construction companies. Not for introducing Scrum in their IT department, but striving for more agility in their business processes. For very traditional industries, conservative employers and employees as well. Her main driver is always: helping those companies to find effective ways to translate their product strategy into operations.
Before we share some of the results of our discussions, in a separate post on “Value oriented Task Breakdown”, with this video first I would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to Carolin and her personal story on how she once “found” Agile and applied its principles and practices to her project – simply because it made sense. Enjoy our first video:
Agile Short Stories
Heads-up to all who want to read more about the early days of her personal journey: As myself, Carolin is part of a group of agile practitioners who contributed to a book on Agile Short Stories that will be available hopefully by the end of the year. Thus, please leave some space on your Christmas wish list! More to come…
Business Agility Podcast
For all the german speaking readers: A couple of weeks ago Caro started her own Business Podcast together with Simon Klaiber. If you are interested in Business Agility, here is the podcast in (German language only):