This is the public version of the 2020 remote syllabus developed for Info 290M Lean/Agile Product Management, a three-unit graduate class taught by Jez Humble at UC Berkeley’s School of Information. Everything in this document is copyright Jez Humble and licensed Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike unless otherwise noted.

This course is designed to give participants a practical overview of the modern lean/agile product management paradigm based on contemporary industry practice. It covers the complete lifecycle of product management, from discovering your customers and users to release planning, economic frameworks, and managing teams. It takes an experimental approach throughout, showing how to minimize investment and output while maximizing the information we discover to support effective decision-making. This class is necessarily incomplete and does not cover product sales and marketing, product strategy, and pricing, amongst other topics.

This public version of the syllabus is designed for self-study and omits classes, some assignments, and guest lectures, all of which expand the syllabus. The website for this class, with details on grading and the most up-to-date syllabus for current students (including all assignments, classes, and guest lectures) is at https://leanagile.pm/. There is a reading list at the bottom. Feel free to submit a pull request or create an issue!

✅ All videos are hosted on YouTube and have closed captions enabled. You can also choose a different speed: I personally found 1.5x to work well.

Unit 1: Introduction

Background study

• The History of Lean Software Development by Mary and Tom Poppendieck.
• The New Methodology by Martin Fowler

Lecture videos

• Unit 1 Module 1: Introducing the Product Lifecycle
• Unit 1 Module 2: Introduction to Risk Management
• Unit 1 Module 3: Risk Management and the Product Lifecycle
• Unit 1 Module 4: A brief history of software project management
• Unit 1 Module 5: Project vs Product
• Slides

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Unit 2: Discovery

Background study

• Watch this short video on “Jobs to be Done”. You can also check out the HBR article.

Lecture videos

• Unit 2 Module 1: Mission, Purpose, and the Scientific Method
• Unit 2 Module 2: Discovery workshops
• Unit 2 Module 3: User Research and MVPs
• Unit 2 Module 4: Personas
• Unit 2 Module 5: Week 2 Assignment
• Slides

Assignment

For this assignment, you’ll need to come up with an idea for a business. This could be for a project that you’re currently working on, or you can make up a business idea of your own.

• Write a brief problem statement for your product (<100 words).
• Create 2 proto-personas.
• Create an empathy map for each proto-persona (more on empathy maps: Nielsen Norman Group, Dave Gray).

Further reading

• The UK Government Digital Service’s guide to how the discovery phase works
• 18F’s guide to discovery methods
• Google Ventures describes the design sprint
• Gamestorming exercises
• How to Avoid the Innovator’s Bias for the Solution by Ash Maurya
• Badass: Making Users Awesome by Kathy Sierra (or watch her talk)
• Practical Empathy by Indi Young
• Lean UX by Jeff Gothelf with Josh Seiden

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Unit 3: Experimental Product Development

Background study

• Data-driven product development at Etsy by Nellwyn Thomas

Lecture videos

• Unit 3 Module 1: An Introduction to Experimental Product Development
• Unit 3 Module 2: A/B testing
• Unit 3 Module 3: Working in Small Batches
• Unit 3 Module 4: Designing experiments
• Slides

Assignment

• Individual: Create a value proposition canvas using one of your proto-personas and empathy maps, and design an experiment.
• Group work:
  • choose a business idea
  • write a problem statement
  • create two proto-personas and empathy maps
  • create two value proposition canvases (one for each proto-persona)

Further reading

• Setting Up An Experiment Framework & Hypothesis Driven Development Programme by Mark Butt
• Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: A Practical Guide to A/B Testing by Ronny Kohavi, Diane Tang, Ya Xu.
• Impact Mapping by Gojko Adzic
• Early Amazon Shopping Cart by Greg Linden
• https://methods.18f.gov/ (check out the methods beyond “discover”)
• Quantitative User-Research Methodologies: An Overview by Kate Moran
• The 7 Habits for Running Highly Effective Lean Startup Experiments by Ash Maurya

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Unit 4: Planning Releases

Background study

• User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton

Lecture videos

• Unit 4 Module 1: Introduction to Release Planning
• Unit 4 Module 2: OKRs
• Unit 4 Module 3: The Problems with Project-based Planning
• Unit 4 Module 4: User Story Mapping
• Slides

Assignment

• Individual: Create a User Story Map: optional make-up assignment
• Group work: conduct problem interviews

Further reading

• Google’s guide to using OKRs
• How to Write a Good PRD by Marty Cagan
• Dear Customer: The Truth about IT Projects by Allan Kelly
• Estimation is Evil by Ron Jeffries
• Waltzing with Bears by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
• User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton

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Unit 5: Economic Frameworks

Background study

• Black Swan Farming using Cost of Delay by Joshua J Arnold and Özlem Yüce

Lecture videos

• Unit 5 Module 1: Economic Frameworks for Prioritization
• Unit 5 Module 2: Introduction to Decision Trees
• Unit 5 Module 3: The Value of Information
• Unit 5 Module 4: Cost of Delay
• Unit 5 Module 5: Optionality
• Slides

Further reading

• Decision Tree Primer by Craig Kirkwood
• Talk: “When and How to Pivot” by David Binetti: slides, video.
• How to Measure Anything by Douglas Hubbard
• The Principles of Product Development Flow by Don Reinertsen
• Waltzing with Bears by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister
• Lean Enterprise by Jez Humble, Joanne Molesky, and Barry O’Reilly

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Unit 6: Managing Work

Background study

• Agile Product Ownership in a Nutshell by Henrik Kniberg
• The Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland

Lecture videos

• Unit 6 Module 1: Roles, Responsibilities, and the Agile Environment
• Unit 6 Module 2: Overview of Agile Frameworks
• Unit 6 Module 3: Introduction to Scrum
• Unit 6 Module 4: Measuring and Improving Software Delivery Performance
• Unit 6 Module 5: Retrospectives
• Slides

Assignment

• Group work: create a business model canvas and design an experiment to test it

Further reading

• Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (2nd Edition) by Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres
• Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business by David J Anderson
• Kanban and Scrum: Making the Most of Both by Henrik Kniberg and Mattias Skarin

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Unit 7: Managing Teams

Background study

• NUMMI 2015 by This American Life
• How to Change a Culture: Lessons from NUMMI by John Shook

Lecture videos

• Unit 7 Module 1: Taylorist vs. Lean Management
• Unit 7 Module 2: Team Culture
• Unit 7 Module 3: Growing Productive Teams
• Slides

Further reading

• The Power of an Agile Mindset by Linda Rising
• The Talent Myth by Malcolm Gladwell
• Mindset by Carol Dweck (watch her 10m talk)
• Drive by Daniel Pink: (or watch the 10m video summary)
• The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier
• Fourteen Points for Management by W. Edwards Deming
• One on Ones template by Manager Tools
• Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming
• Chapter 11 of Lean Enterprise by Jez Humble, Joanne Molesky, and Barry O’Reilly (available in the free excerpt)

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Unit 8: Getting Stuff Done

Background study and class

• Case Study: WillowTree: Project Driven with a Product Mindset

Lecture videos

• Unit 8 Module 1: Principles of Organizational Change
• Unit 8 Module 2: The Improvement Kata
• Unit 8 Module 3: Strategy Deployment
• Slides

Further reading

• Mike Rother’s Toyota Kata website
• Google Cloud’s guide to organizational transformation

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Reading List

There are no required books for this course. However, if you’re interested in getting a solid grounding in the subject, I recommend the following:

• Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan
• Badass: Making Users Awesome by Kathy Sierra
• Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value by Melissa Perri
• User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product by Jeff Patton
• The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development by Donald G. Reinertsen
• Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience by Jeff Gothelf with Josh Seiden
• The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
• Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works by Ash Maurya
• Escape Velocity: Free Your Company’s Future from the Pull of the Past by Geoffrey A. Moore
• Lean Enterprise: How High-Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale by Jez Humble, Joanne Molesky, and Barry O’Reilly
• How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of “Intangibles” in Business by Douglas W. Hubbard