Kano and the Agile Project Manager

John C Goodpasture
Square Peg Consulting
www.sqpegconsulting.com
johngoodpasture.com

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 Kano and Agile are all about user value

• Kano plots user value from ‘ah-hah!’ to ‘don’t care’

– ‘Ah-hah!’ is the break-out version of ‘more is better’
– ‘More is better’ is group-think race to the top
– ‘Indifference’ is yesterday’s ‘ah-hah!’

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 Vision needs reality

• Agile and Kano together bring reality to vision

– Kano analysis kicks off envisioning and exploring Vision and
– Kano ‘ah-hah!’s can be the compelling vision for an agile exploring
team
– Avoid group-think – it’s not a good place to invest

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 User satisfaction is always primary

• Agile focus is on projects

where user satisfaction is
primary
– The product evolves from
user experience and
adoption
– Change is embraced;
indeed, encouraged
– Value is ‘pulled’ into the
market, not pushed

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 On the Kano Chart, the upper right quadrant is the
place to be!

Customer Satisfaction
+
Quadrant Upper Left Quadrant Upper Right
Latent Requirements Customer Delight

- Product Functionality +

Quadrant Lower Left Quadrant Lower Right

Customer dissatisfaction Customer dissatisfaction with
with missing or withheld provided functionality
functions

-
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Customer Dissatisfaction 5
 Everything loses panache over time!

Customer Satisfaction
Ah = “ah-hah!”

Ah decay to In or M
+

MIB decay to
M or In
In = Indifferent axis
Product Functionality +
M = “must be present”
MIB = More is
Better

-
Customer Dissatisfaction
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 The sweet spot for agile is the ‘ah-hah!’ quadrant

• In the ‘ah-hah’ quadrant customers are interested, engaged, and

energetic
• Early adopters push the ‘ah-hah!’ curve, giving feedback at every
iteration
• Ah-hahs! will be copied by competitors
– Eventually the advantage is lost as ah-hah! becomes ‘me too!’
– MIB’s decay to M’s over time
– Other opportunities may be closed out

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 More-is-better is a hazard

• Customers may not pay attention to In’s or M’s

– ‘In’ and ‘M’ must be there, even without customer interest
– ‘In’ is the axis for compliance and standards
• The more-is-better horserace leads to group-think
– The race mesmerizes

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 Agilists pull out the latent requirements

• Latent requirements are

unknown until revealed by
someone else
– I’ll know it when I see it
– Who knew I needed that?!
• Exploratory and envisioning
gets the conversation going
– It’s a conversation, not a quiz
– The value proposition may
be very fuzzy
– Prototypes may be needed
– Be aware of non-verbal
communication

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 Think images!

• Reduce everything to stories that image the vision

– If you can’t draw it, you probably can’t write it!
• Frame all the stories with architecture
– Every product has architecture!
– Make architecture cohesive; keep architecture loosely
coupled

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 From Kano comes the business case

• Scope ah-hah! as the project theme

– Functional, feature-rich, compelling
• Complete the scope with In, M, and
MIB
– Can’t forget these just because they
are not exciting
• Estimate the investment
– Dollars per team iteration x Story
points* / Velocity**
*Total backlog **Story points per team iteration
– What does the project benefactor
need from the estimate?

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 Benefits are the ultimate reward

• Propose benefits at
milestones
– Who’s in the
community of
beneficiaries?
– What’s their value
proposition?
– Show value roll-out at
milestones
• Remember: satisfying
the customer is more
important than
following a plan

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 For more…..

• Visit www.sqpegconsulting.com/library.html
for free articles
• Search allpm.com & pmi.org for my articles
• Read my opinions at johngoodpasture.com
• And, look for my new book in January 2010
“Project Management the Agile Way -- Making It
Work In the Enterprise”

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 About the author

Today’s Guest
John Goodpasture, PMP
Program manager, system engineer,
author and coach
Managing Principal of
Square Peg Consulting
John specializes in applying technology
across a broad spectrum to achieve
business goals.
www.sqpegconsulting.com

Author of
Quantitative Methods in Project Management (2004)
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