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Latest featured content by Jeff Patton

Jeff Patton on the Product Owner’s World

Topics
Artifacts & Tools,
Agile Techniques,
Communication,
Agile,
Customers & Requirements,
Delivering Value,
Collaboration

In this interview, Jeff Patton discusses the Product Owner role and points out that Agile has never been very focused on the customer. While Agile development excels at “delivery”, it struggles to support “discovery” (i.e. defining what the customer really needs). Also discussed are techniques such as Lean Startup and story maps and the importance of defining business value in an Agile context.

Presentations by Jeff Patton

Using Design Thinking to Stop Building Worthless Software

Topics
Agile Techniques,
Agile,
Design

Jeff Patton outlines the concepts behind design thinking: clear problem definition, ideation, iteration, and execution plans that emphasize continuous learning, accompanied by real-life examples.

Jeff Patton on Lean Product Discovery

Topics
Agile,
Agile Techniques

Think of a product you love, one you'd recommend to a friend. What makes the product valuable? While I'm not a mind reader, I'm confident you weren't thinking: "lack of bugs" or "time to market." The most difficult part isn't delivery, but the discovery of products that are truly valuable to the people that use them. Jeff Patton explores applying Lean thinking to product discovery.

Pragmatic Personas: Putting the User back in User Stories

Topics
Agile,
Agile Techniques

Jeff briefly reviews the different ways that software is currently built and then describes how to create and use user personas to design and build software that has a better user experience. Jeff walks us through how to collaboratively build a user persona, what a user persona should include, and how to use these personas to write user scenarios that end up as user stories wit.

Embrace Uncertainty

Topics
Agile,
Agile Techniques

In this original presentation from the Communitech Agile Event, Jeff Patton, winner of the Agile Alliance’s 2007 Gordon Pask Award, explains why one needs to embrace uncertainty in order to succeed with his/her Agile project and how to avoid some of the common mistakes leading to project failure.

Interviews by Jeff Patton

Jeff Patton on User Centered Design and Story Mapping

Topics
Agile,
Agile Techniques

Jeff Patton describes the different ways Agile teams deal with users and then digs in deep into story mapping. Jeff says: "For me, the story mapping thing is going back to using the story as a genuine conversation to actually drive understanding of the system, not as what I've seen it become – molecular conversation about the details of a particular feature and how we're going to test it.

Jeff Patton on Embracing Uncertainty

Topics
Agile,
Agile Techniques

In this interview with Jeff Patton at Agile 2008, he talks about three strategies that can help product owners do their job more effectively by embracing the inherent uncertainty in all software development. Namely they are understanding the ultimate goals of the project, delaying decisions until the last responsible moment, and scaling up by building quality.