Innovation games - Part 1, Prune the Product Tree

Portuguese version

I've recently being in quest to find tools to help me to get better results at the Product Backlog Management. Scrum does not say much about it (no demerit, Scrum is just a framework afterall).

So, how's the Backlog supposed to be managed and prioritized? How do user histories get there? What if the Product Owner (PO) has to address the demands of several stakeholders at once, disputing for a clear finite resource represented by the development team? What should he do?
The purpose of the Innovation games is to be an aid to address these problems. They're playful ways to generate input for a product or service development.

PRUNE THE PRODUCT TREE

Prune the product tree - I promise that I'll create a translated version

Visualizing the product in a linear manner with inorganic representations of roadmaps seems to show the product growth as something linear over time, what does not appear to represent reality.

This game improves the understanding that the product should grow in a planned fashion, allowing stakeholders to model all aspects of the product rather than just giving feedback about a set of features in a roadmap.

When we prune a tree our purpose is to control its growth to be balanced, so the tree is healthy and able to provide fruits of greater quality.

Its fundamental to comprehend that this process is not about "cutting", but about "modeling". This metaphor is used in the game to help creating the product that stakeholders want.

The game 

First, it is necessary either a white board, a flip-chart or anything in which a reasonably sized tree can be drawn or sketched upon.

Represent the system's areas of functionality as branches in the tree, and the roots as what should support the whole tree (your support and customer care infrastructure). Each release may be represented in the tree's canopy with a different shade of green, for instance. The innermost part should represent your actual system, and the outermost parts, what should be developed in the short, medium and long terms (take a look at the image).

Gather a small group of stakeholders (from as few as 4 or as much as 15), because small groups tend to self-organize and generate better results.

Foster debates among stakeholders about pros and cons of each feature, where they should be placed on the tree and also if they should be part of the next release or a future one.

Besides placing new leaves on the tree, ask the participants to remove old ones too. This act meaning that thease features should be removed from the system (The image shows the removal candidate leaves in the dark green part of the tree).

Stay alert for the heath of the tree's growth. Pay attention if it is growing in a balanced manner, if there is a branch in which all features are being placed, or either, if a formerly weak branch is growing more vigorously now. Pay attention if the proposed features are well distributed among short, medium and long term. Pay attention if the roots are strong enough to support the growth of the tree.

After the session, if possible, expose the resulting tree somewhere visible. It is possible that new ideas and/or restrictions are thought of latter.

Variations

Some variations of this game do not show roots, so in these cases, index cards placed on the ground represent features considered of little or no importance.

Another interesting variation is to create a "cloud of doubt", it works as a kind of "parking lot" to not well understood features or the ones that stakeholders don't know how to use.

Why it Work?

The features vary a whole lot in importance and we have a tendency to put all our efforts in the most important ones (they're the ones that provide most value to clients, after all). Unfortunately, this approach commonly leads to the lack of effort on necessary features to complete the product.

The purpose of this exercise is to offer a very visual way for everyone to see the product as a whole. It allows everyone to assess whether the tree is balanced or not. The picture of the tree can be kept somewhere visible to serve as an information radiator.

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If you want further information on this subject, read Luke Hohmann's Innovation Games Book