Do you have a long list of bugs? You definitely want to have a zero bug policy, but now you have all sorts of minors, majors, and criticals. You’re not really sure how to get to zero bugs (were you ever there to begin with?). You have spikes where you fix the bugs and your graphs show a steep downward drop, only for them to turn upwards again and reach new heights. Just maintaining the list of bugs is a full time job! To add insult to injury, when a team member finally gets around to looking at a bug, they usually find that it’s outdated, not reproducible or part of some long forgotten removed functionality.

There has to be a better way! How can you shift the focus from managing bugs to ensuring quality? Here’s a system that’s easy to start using, and rewarding when you follow it.Continue reading

You have a feature to implement, and there are several implementation solutions available. How do you choose the best one?

Start out with all your potential solutions for a feature idea. Next, filter based on how the solutions perform using a set of verification methods. Finally, implement the feature knowing that you’ve found the solution that meets your needs.

Verification Methods

The following are the verification methods I’ve experienced most often on the projects:Continue reading

How do you decide what to build next? Who comes up with the ideas? How do you decide in what order to implement them? How do you keep track of what you’re working on, and what you want to work on?

Here’s a behind the scenes look at how the Candy Crush Soda team comes up with ideas and decides what to build next!

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Curious about how we developed Candy Crush Soda at King? Like any project we’ve had our challenges. We developed the game on a framework that had never been tested live, while programming in two languages simultaneously to support multiple operating systems. Adding to the challenge, we started working without a prototyped game idea, within an existing Saga format that comes with a long list of features that players are used to. The project, code-named Stritz, was born in the spring of 2013. We soft launched a year later, and hard launched in the fall of 2014. This is our story. 

Here are the slides for my keynote How do you know that your product works at Lean Kanban Central Europe, Hamburg.

I travelled with Emma (6 yrs), she’s been wanting to travel with me (alone, without her 3 siblings…) for a long time, so she’s really happy! Thanks Mary & Tom Poppendieck for being her bonus grandparents during the whole trip 🙂

Some sample slides & pics below.

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Product development isn’t easy. In fact, most product development efforts fail, and the most common reason for failure is building the wrong product.

Spotify is a Swedish lean startup with an awesome track record of product delivery. The products are designed to be easy, personal, and fun. Even Metallica, long known as die-hard opponents to music streaming services, now say that Spotify is “by far the best streaming service” and are “stunned by the ease of it”.

Here’s the paradox though: Successful companies like Spotify only want to deliver products that people love. But they don’t know if people love it until they’ve delivered it. So how do they do it?

Check out the article “How Spotify Builds Products”

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