PL/SPL Product Leader
Defines Product Charter and Vision.
Fact
PL/SPL Product Leaders develop and mentor the team of Product Owners to continuously refine a synchronized vision for each product/sub product.
Help set the technical vision for the Product Line
Fact
PL/SPL Engg Leader makes technical directional decisions for the product/sub-product line
Coaches team Scrum Masters and Product Owners
Fact
Functional Mgr coaches and gives feedback to Scrum team members including Scrum Master and Product Owner.
PL/SPL Product Leaders prioritize the Product Backlog for their teams.
Myth
Empower the Product Owners of each Scrum Team to effectively define and prioritize the items in their Product Backlog
Empower each scrum team to choose their own toolset/stack and create their own engineering standards.
Myth
Drives PL organizational engineering standards in order to maximize efficiencies of scale.
Functional Manager should plan and assign stories to Scrum team members
Myth
Functional Managers need to push decision making (scrum teams are responsible for planning and owning tasks) down to the team and encourage Scrum Masters/POs to facilitate decision making. Scrum teams should be self organized.
PL/SPL Leaders engage with, gather feedback from, and keep the senior business / stakeholder & customers informed on a regular and continuous cadence
Fact
PL/SPL Leaders collaborate with senior business stakeholders based on a single source of truth(Rally) in order to obtain feedback and adjust future Product Strategy.
PL/SPL Engg Leader should assign work to their Engg Managers and expect frequent status reports from them.
Myth
PL/SPL Engg Leaders push decision making down to their managers. They coach and give feedback because they are responsible for the growth and development of their Engineering Managers.
Functional Managers should be focused on helping their teams deliver value every sprint and removing any bottlenecks that they are unable to resolve on their own.
Fact
Functional Managers are value-oriented – understand the full value stream (concept to cash) and the role of their team in it and actively remove impediments and bottlenecks for their people which are beyond the team’s ability and scope to resolve.
PL/SPL Leaders ensure that the maximum number of L2s are assigned to teams in a sprint so that we make progress in each project.
Myth
PL/SPL Leaders should ensure that the value delivery(outcomes) in each sprint is maximized instead of output (# of user stories/Epics). Multi-tasking on multiple L2s in a single sprint reduces performance and consequently value delivery.
Teams are reporting that Integration testing environment has issues. PL/SPL Engg Leaders should assign a developer for a sprint to investigate the issues in this environment.
Myth
PL/SPL Engg Leaders are responsible for solving organizational impediments such as stabilizing the integration testing environment. They would do that by collaborating with their peers in Infrastructure and doing a root cause analysis, supporting a problem solving session and commit to a follow thru action.
As a functional manager, I should attend all my teams' retrospectives so that I know how they are improving.
Myth
Functional Managers should create and encourage a safe and respectful environment in which teams members can review their mistakes without repercussions. Hence, the managers should not be in the teams' retrospectives.
PL/SPL Leaders should conduct regular retrospectives as a leadership team that includes PL/SPL Engg Leaders and Program Managers/PgM Directors.
Fact
PL/SPL Leaders lead by example for Agile Evolution and should collaborate with their peers to drive continuous improvement of teams and product.
PL/SPL Engg Leader is responsible for only understanding the technical portion of the work and helps their Engineering Manager understand this.
Myth
PL/SPL Engg leaders understand and help their Engineering Managers to see the full value stream (concept to cash) and the role of their teams in it. Is responsible for removing bottlenecks which are beyond the team’s ability and scope to resolve.
As a functional manager I am responsible for optimizing productivity by getting the right people to do what they are best at.
Myth
Functional Managers should create cross functional teams with T-shaped team members by investing in training and creating opportunities for people to grow, learn and work cross-functionally. Give people the ownership for results and invest in their success.