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Value Shaper (aka Quadmate)

This is an Assignment's Handbook...
In Product we break our jobs into smaller units of responsibility we call Assignments. We do this to provide clarity for the person doing the job (what am I being relied upon for), clarity for the person's teammates (what can I rely on this person for), as well as to encourage high quality (specific and relevant) feedback.

Function Leader (ℹ️):

= AR3

Tagline:

We are the missionaries responsible for shaping the solutions aimed at value delivered – as measured by the desired outcome within the missions / Opportunities we are asked to tackle.

We are the bringers of the ilities... Possibility, Usability, Adoptability, and Viability. These combined is what creates Value Delivered. Everyone on Product lives by the motto – however, we are the deciders of what software to build for a software company. As such we are at the center of exploring ways to deliver value that our clients/partners love and work for the business.

Outcome:

  • Oppty quality checking
    • I recently heard a good metaphor for this. You can be asked to design a vase, or to design a way for people to be able to appreciate flowers. Oppties are "How might we allow people to appreciate flowers". Assumptions are "I think putting them on the dinner table will bring joy". Solutions are... a vase. Value Shapers are given a mission of "How might we allow people to appreciate flowers". The oppty is a good oppty if you can clearly state the why, what, and who. The measure of Oppty quality checking is a checks and balances measure. The strategic-opportunity-tree caretaker agrees "Working with this value shaper makes me better at writing opportunities... they are collaborative in seeking clarity and ensuring everyone is aiming at the most important thing... Continuously Delivering Value that Clients and Partners Love – and Works for the Business"
  • Learning Frequency
    • We aim for continuous.. in order to do that we must be testing assumptions continuously. When you have a squad with great Value Shapers, squadmates agree "We are deliberately learning so much... meaning, 3+ opinion-shifting and/or assumption-(in)validating learnings per quarter".
  • Oppties, Assumptions, and Solutions separation... decomposing oppties into assumptions, experiments, and ultimately iterating on solutions.
    • Great value shapers are incredible at devising a set of assumptions (prioritizing the riskiest of them). Designing experiments to test them keeping in mind the cost/benefit of the learning and risk mitigation. And ultimately delivering solutions that get at the desired outcomes in the oppties! Stakeholders agree "I know what the squad's assumptions are, how/if they are testing them, and how these insights are resulting in higher quality software... as seen by the squad hitting or exceeding between 60-80% of their stated launch effectiveness hypotheses"

Required Activities:

  • Set the quarterly output-based key results for their squad

Handbook:

  • ...

Card in MAAP Assignment Map

OurGruuv:

Previous version below...

... left here because AR3 is a horder... we'll delete this once Value Shaper feels right. It'l feel right when folks are no longer asking deep questions about what it means to be a Value Shaper.

Note: This is a multi-faceted assignment. One may argue that this needs to be broken up into more specific Assignments, and we may very well do that, but for now we are trying to keep the Assignment landscape as simple as possible. If we do break this up it'll likely be either across the -itilies and/or the phases, defined below. If someone either wants to participate in one part and not in another, or if someone is really good at one part and not the other, we will consider dividing this up.

Value Shaper, you are the people within a squad who are responsible for defining what we are going to build and organizing it in such a way that it results in the best learning, most value, and ideal level of clarity possible.

Where do you fall on the hypothesis chain?

  1. The Vision, 10-year target, and 3-year target is the primary responsibility of the Visionary (Clint)
  2. The vision informs the Company Strategy in the form of company scorecards, annual measures, and annual goals, and is the primary responsibility of the exec/leadership team (Jenny, Leslie, Natalie, Chris I., AR3, and Clint)
  3. The company strategy informs the Product Strategy in the form of scorecard/measures and an annual objective for each squad defined by the Betting Table (Jenny, Clint, and AR3)
  4. Quarterly, we engage is a variety of prioritization techniques (defined below), and this is where the ProdTrio/Quad aka the Shaping Crew defines the solutions we ultimately build in the quest to accomplish the annual objectives.

Styles of Shaping (belongs in a Guru card)

  • Kanban
    • This style is focused on delivering output. Whatever is most important is what is done. This way may or may not be guided by an underlying outcome. It may be reactive.
  • Tournament of Value (ToV)
    • This style is focused on delivering outcomes, with a relatively strict process. Betting table gives the opportunities, the Shaping Crew shapes the work. The result of the shaping helps fuel the opportunity setting, but the Betting table is still accountable for choosing which opportunities continue to get shaping.
  • Continuous Value Delivery (cVd)
    • This is the ultimate form of Product. It is driven by outcomes, but without the structure of ToV. The assumption with cVd is that all of the context and decision making that comes from being the Betting Table are being shared effectively with the squad, and vice versa. Therefore decision-making can be more fluid / less structured. This style requires a tremendous amount of trust, communication, and accountability and realization of exponential results. It is the most like chaos and many squads will never want to move to this choosing to instead stay in the nice rhythms of ToV.

The Five Pillars of Value

  • Feasibility (Can we build it)
    • This is traditionally handled by Product Engineering, but in great teams all members take responsibility for it. Our ideal is that we can decompose and sequence work such that after a max of a 6-week appetite we have delivered value and/or are set up to learn a tremendous amount that will help fuel innovation.
  • Desirability (Do they want/need it)
    • This is traditionally handled by Product Management, but in great teams all members take responsibility for ot. Much of the evidence of desirability is excavated using is continuous qualitative and quantitative analysis (whoever is closest to the customer, wins.... this is a Product Law). We may or may not introduce pure product management into our ecosystem. For now, this will be a collective effort. We will lean heavily on Product Design, Product Marketing, and the Betting Table.
  • Usability (Can they use it... does it live our unique of Easy)
    • This is traditionally handled by Product Design, but in great teams all members take responsibility for it. Multivariate tests, user testing, etc... these are the tools of the trade for those focused on usability.
  • Viability... broken into the cost/benefit
    • Viability:Cost (does the cost of building and supporting it work for our business)
      • This is traditionally handled by Product Management, but in great teams all members take responsibility for it. How will this impact ops, implementation, hiring experts? What impact on the infrastructure will this the functionality have? Any discrete costs with maintaining it, and if so what is the impact on our profit margins? Likelihood of needing to invest more than 6 weeks before seeing any value? We will lean heavily on Product Ownership, Product Engineering, and the Betting Table.
    • Viability:Benefit (Business benefit of building it)
      • This is usually handled by Product Management, but in great teams all members take responsibility for it. Will this have an impact on the key business measures (retention, expansion, referrals, brand strength, higher operational efficiencies, etc). We will lean heavily on everyone, but Product Marketing and the Betting Table will have a purview that will be relied upon tremendously.

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The phases of Opportunities

  1. Opportunity generation (diverge)
    1. Betting Table is accountable, but should be heavily influenced by the squad / shaping crew
  2. Opportunity prioritization (converge)
    1. Betting Table is accountable, but should be heavily influenced by the squad / shaping crew
  3. Opportunity solution shaping
    1. Shaping Crew is accountable, but will be heavily influenced by the Betting Table (BT will make the ToV cuts, unless a squad has moved to cVd)

The phases of solution shaping

  1. Phase 1 of solution shaping: Get clear on the desired outcome, and then Diverge... discuss what is possible
  2. Phase 2 of solution shaping: Converge... what do we decide... fat market, define rabbit holes, etc
  3. Phase 3 of solution shaping: Brief... create the guided tour
  4. Phase 4 of solution shaping: Decomposition and Sequencing... what is the riskiest assumption, how can we deliver value, continuously as we build the full experience, how can we learn along the way, how can we set ourselves up to Sense and Respond in the future?

Who should be shapers

Everyone on a squad should be invited to the shaping meetings, but the only people required are those officially on the Product Shaping Crew. We will let every squad and every person along with their manager make the decision on if folks should attend the shaping meetings. The ProdQuad =

  • Tech Lead
  • Product Designer
  • Product Owner / Manager
  • Product Marketer (coming soon)

Guest appearance by the following, when necessary/desired... but unless you are one of the four defined above, this Assignment will come secondary at best for you:

  • Delivery-focused Software Engineers
  • Engineering Managers
  • Software Engineers, in Test (once we have both SEiTs in place, we may adjust and have them be official/required members of the Shaping Crew)
  • Betting Table

This is big... how might we break this up?

The easiest way to break this up is create a Value Shaper-type Assignment for each discipline. For PO/PM, in the past we've had Epic/Scope Shaper and Discovery Manager as a distinct Assignment. For Engineering we've had Discover Engineer and Story Shaper. Design always has design-specific Assignments, given nearly 50-80% of their job is shaping solutions.

If there is appetite to break this highly important Assignment into more digestable chunks, I'm good with that! Starting with fewer Assignments and breaking them into smaller ones as we see the need to do so.

Misc notes about this Assignment

You will strive for continuous learning, continuous prioritization to ensure continuous value delivery, and continuous communication to stakeholders to ensure everyone is brought along for the value ride. That is your job as a Shaper. You take the work that might seem big and scary and help make everyone feel safe and confident that we will deliver!

As a shaper you will create, groom, and prioritize units of work that take into high-integrity date-based commitments (if one has been set), stakeholder communication, and squad capacity awareness.

Measures to pay attention to

  • Optimize Learning Frequency (example of an assignment that captures this well)
    • Everytime we put working software in the hands of clients, it is us saying "we think this will add value... does it?". This is critical to all well-functioning Product teams. How do we measure if we are doing this well?...
    • Once per month per squad, there is something that earns an “agree” on the internal question of “This is something that will help our clients/partners love our offering, and it also works for our business”.
      • Likely activity: Breaking out some scopes into items worthy of being put on ProductBoard and getting the “launch treatment”.
    • A project is decomposed/sequenced in a way that delivers value to clients/partners as early as possible and therefore creates consistent (weekly is the eventual goal... for now 6 assumption tests per quarter would be amazing) learning moments for a squad. Ideally we are learning weekly about things such as:
      • How clients/partners will use the feature
      • What bugs/edge cases we might have missed
      • Are we meeting our hypotheses and measures
      • and more!
    • Each unit of work (epic or scope) is written and sliced in a way, that when complete it accomplishes one (ideally all) of the following:
      • We are able to enable the functionality or work into a customer account to deliver value
      • We have progressed in de-risking the some or all of the Big Five Attributes of Value
  • Internal Product Confidence
  • Feasibility
    • We work closely with product managers and product designers to assess the technical feasibility of solutions that meet customer needs by providing insight and answering questions such as:
      • What is the very early feasibility analysis that ensures there’s a manageable amount of risk as it moves into delivery (likely giving best case worst case based on nothing more than wireframes)?
      • What delivery goals are possible in a given time period with a given amount of engineering resources?
      • What are the impacts the potential solutions may have on our existing systems?

Things you might deliver/do

  • You will be responsible for decomposing the big initiative into epics that tell a story while providing value along the way as early as possible
  • Ensure the epics/scopes used to communicate progress are in a healthy state in Jira (the connection to ProductBoard is key, but that will be the responsibility of the [Sorcerex of Truth](https://ourgruuv.com/our/roles/10176?name=sorcerex_of_truth&organization=careerplug))

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