These days, it seems like every software company has some agile or agile-ish teams. But how do you carry agile values beyond the team and into the business prioritization process? Over the last few years, I’ve worked with a group of stakeholders from VPs to support representatives to form a Product Council team that guides our development process. We ship software frequently (every week) and so this process is key for keeping a large number of stakeholders engaged in close contact with the delivery team. The Product Council consolidates feedback, develops the roadmap, and maintains stakeholder buy-in for a continuously evolving plan. In this workshop, i’ll introduce two different Product Council structures and the pros and cons of each. We’ll also talk about voting methods, managing ‘persistent’ stakeholders, using lightweight business cases to avoid waste, and whether your Product Council should be a democracy or an advisory team.
