Making Sure Agile Always Delivers Customer Value
Teams are getting good at agile—they learn the ceremonies, they get a good agile coach that tightens performance, and they become a well-oiled machine primed for delivery. But are they delivering value to the customer? In agile, for some teams sprint 0 is assigned to research spikes, to help define the value that the sprint should deliver. But for many teams, there is not even a sprint 0; value delivery should happen constantly. Join Vidya Dinamani and Heather Samarin as they share what they’re seeing in multiple organizations: Teams that are constantly delivering, but their products are failing and their customers are unhappy. Explore how to change this scenario by leveraging agile in a way that helps truly define customer value at every sprint. This isn’t magic—it requires some fundamentals in how to understand the customer problem and how to ensure that the entire product team is aligned to solving that problem. Discuss several case studies on how teams can move beyond just being good at agile, to leveraging agile to deliver value.
Vidya Dinamani is co-founder for ProductRebels.com where she exercises her passion for coaching product leaders, product teams and company founders. She has over 18 years of experience specializing in business & technology strategy and product design, development and management. Vidya has held multiple executive roles at leading companies, including senior executive positions leading Innovation and Design, Product Management & Marketing at Mitchell International, Director of Customer Experience for TurboTax, Intuit. A holder of 7 US patents for software technology, Vidya earned a B.S. in Physics from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, and a Masters from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is also a certified Net Promoter Associate.
Heather Samarin, co-founder of Product Rebels, has over 17 years of experience in delighting customers through the design, development, and management of customer experiences within both B2B and B2C marketing and product management. She’s held both senior and C-Level roles at start-ups within the social gaming and healthcare markets where she led product strategy and new product development. Before this, Heather spent over 11 years and held several senior leadership positions at Intuit Inc. Most recently, as Vice President for TurboTax Product Management, she launched their “free” business model and alternative monetization strategy through 2 new online tax products. As Director of QuickBooks Brand Management, she launched several new products targeted at the SMB market. She holds a BS in finance from California State University and an MBA in marketing from Santa Clara University