Abstract: How to help Youku quickly integrate into ali research and development system? How to optimize the demand analysis process of Youku? How to solve the pain point that the function developed is not what the product wants because the demand information is not clear?
Click here to view the original text:click.aliyun.com/m/41381/
Introduction: How to help Youku quickly integrate into ali research and development system? How to optimize the demand analysis process of Youku? How to solve the pain point that the function developed is not what the product wants because the demand information is not clear? This article by Alibaba Agile coach Zhang Yinghui (aka Wenju), details how to help youku students solve problems through research and analysis, design scheme, implementation, evaluation and continuous optimization of the closed loop.
I. Background and objectives
In order to get familiar with the situation of Youku, PMO and I interviewed the roles of product, design, development, testing and project manager of youku’s host and guest team. They reported the main pain points in the demand analysis stage as follows:
In view of these pain points, the objectives of optimization of demand analysis process are set as follows:
It provides a data-driven demand management scheme with light process and heavy standards, drives the team to improve in a data-driven way, and provides transparent management of the whole process from creation to release of requirements.
Ii. Design scheme and implementation
Youku host and guest team has a set of requirements analysis process before, the establishment of demand priority PK and demand review mechanism. In view of your feedback and the characteristics of Youku mobile App, and drawing on the experience of mobile shopping, I designed a set of improved demand management scheme.
Sequence diagram of biweekly iteration:
(Note: This figure only applies to general iterations, excluding special projects)
Compared with existing schemes:
1. Added product planning: product planning meetings are held quarterly, and business leaders attend. The main agenda includes: review of business data and achievement of business objectives for the last quarter; Plan the business target and operation method for the next quarter. The core requirements for the next three months should be planned and designed around business objectives and business practices.
The main purpose is to solve the pain point of “unclear planning” and form a synergy from top to bottom to focus on business goals.
2. Provide a requirement summary with interactive sketches during the requirement combing process. TL for all roles and key stakeholders participate in the needs sorting meeting. Before the meeting, the product students recorded the requirements into Aliyunyun.com and provided the outline design of the requirements. The product team reached a consensus on the priority of the requirements. At the meeting, product students spoke about their needs in order of priority, and the audience asked questions to clarify their needs. The requirements outline should at least be clear on the value of the requirements, technically feasible, and clear on the interaction of the main process.
The main purpose is to hope that the product students go forward, early investment early communication early design, avoid a word demand or oral demand occupy.
- From centralized requirement review with only TL participation to decentralized requirement review with front-line students participation. After the demand review, THE TL agreed on the delivery scope and assigned manpower to the requirements within the scope, and the division of labor information was updated into Aliyun Cloud effect. Product students bring in relevant front-line students and key stakeholders to organize requirements review by themselves. TL to participate in the key requirements review, front-line students to participate in their own requirements review.
Youku organizes a team according to functions, with 102 people in product, design, development and test. Previously, first-line students did not participate in the requirement review, and TL delivered the requirements on behalf of them. From meeting to meeting, I let front-line students participate in requirement design and discussion, better understand requirements, and timely propose solutions to problems and risks. It also frees up the TL so that you don’t need to care about every requirement and just focus on the key requirements.
- Requirements meet the commencement criteria to enter the development process. The construction standard was drafted by the students of youku’s main and guest product team and passed the TL review. The start-up criteria have been configured in the Cloud effect requirement template of Aliyun. You only need to fill in the blanks in the template for newly created requirements.
5. The unified needs of Ali Yunyun effect. The whole process of demand from creation to release is tracked in aliyunyun effect, which is the premise of data-based management. Unifying tools also enhances collaboration and reduces communication costs.
3. Effect evaluation
In January 2017, after the implementation of the plan, I interviewed 2 product students, 1 design student and 1 development student from youku’s host and guest team. On January 20, 2017, a version conclusion meeting was organized, which was attended by TL of host and guest teams and representatives of first-line students. Based on the feedback of the interview and the concluding meeting, the main points are summarized as follows:
1. Improved sense of rhythm: The time points are clear, and the output of each stage is clear.
2. The process is simple and clear, avoiding redundant and inefficient links: front-line personnel have a better understanding of requirements and timely find problems; The efficiency of separate assessment of requirements is significantly improved, and it will not occupy a large area of other students’ time; The product went forward, but also led other students to start early, demand backlog situation has improved.
3. The introduction of tools improves efficiency: cloud effect is easy to operate and information synchronization is better; Unified demand management tools, improve efficiency; Requirements are associated with bugs to help locate problems.
Fourth, continuous optimization
After the demand process optimization plan was implemented in youku’s host and guest team, other teams and departments also hoped to help optimize the demand process. From February to March 2017, through cooperation with business interface personnel, I helped other teams of Youku Product technology Department and Youku advertising to implement a new demand analysis process: integrating requirements into Aliyun Cloud effect, and realizing transparent management of the whole process from creation to release of requirements.
Taking the main business lines of Youku product technology platform as an example, the core index report of the whole process of r&d is as follows:
(Note: To protect youku data security, a clear version is not provided here.)
The above four reports are generated according to the dimensions of business lines (projects), which respectively correspond to the number of completed requirements of each business line from March 1 to March 31, the total and phased duration of requirements from creation to release, the number of newly created defects, and the average closing duration of closed defects. These four core metrics reflect the quality, efficiency and responsiveness of the business line. After the report was produced, the business team analyzed the report to find problems and took corrective actions.
Here are two examples:
1. A team found that the requirements analysis phase was extremely long
The research found that some requirements were ready, but the development team was full;
Requirements have to wait for scheduling, and the scheduling time is accounted for in the analysis time;
The team decided to revamp the workflow to add scheduling status after requirements analysis;
The revamped workflow can better reflect the actual work of the team and help find bottlenecks.
2. A certain business line delivered 16 requirements and added 1030 defects in March 2017, with relatively high demand for defects.
After summary and reflection, the team found two main reasons:
First, the granularity of demand is relatively large; Second, students’ understanding of requirements is inconsistent between testing and product and development.
Improvement actions include breaking requirements down into appropriate granularity, testing students to participate in requirements reviews, and ensuring that everyone’s understanding of requirements is consistent.
Five, the summary
As a member of the Agile coaching team, I tried to implement the mission of the team into action: “introduce the excellent practices of the industry, explore the research and development mode suitable for Alibaba, practice in the research and development team, help the team to improve quality and efficiency, sediment successful cases and implement them into the tool platform”.
Guided by agile concepts, it helps the team establish a steady pace of iteration, and guides the team to continuous improvement through intuitive and transparent r&d process data. Under the condition that youku hosts and clients organize their teams according to their functions, they do not stick to rules and regulations and give priority to product dismantling and dismantling time according to local conditions. After the stable operation of the biweekly iteration for 3 months, youku host and guest team emerged a relatively stable product, design, development and test combination. It can be said that the prototype of cross-functional feature team has emerged, laying a good foundation for the transformation to feature team.
In addition, I work closely with the Cloud Effect product team to continuously optimize and improve the reporting capabilities of Cloud Effect. These common features also facilitate continuous improvement by other teams.
Author introduction: Zhang Yinghui (alias Wenju), Alibaba Agile coach, Luo Hantang lecturer, developed and taught many agile courses, has supported mobile Taobao, Youku, mobile business group and other departments of the team agile transformation. I started to contact agile development in 2011. I am certified CSM, CSD and CSPO. Experience the changes agile brings to the team and aspire to become agile practitioners. PS: pay attention to the wechat signal of Ali_yunxiao, the dialog box to reply to the R&D efficiency, and download the enterprise efficiency upgrade collection materials.