Does an Information Product have to be delivered in a single iteration?
No.
If you are using a time box pattern for your iterations, aka a Scrum centric approach, I have found that three week time-boxed iterations seem to work best for a team when they are starting out.
Ideally the Information Product will be defined in a way that it can be delivered within the three week iteration, but sometimes that is not practical. If that’s the case its ok to deliver the Information Product over multiple iterations, in that scenario I suggest you focus on the acceptance criteria that will be delivered in each iteration.
Overtime as the team matures their AgileData Way of working, they should focus on being able to decompose the Information products down to a set of requirements that can be delivered in a single iteration. The reason is we want to deliver value to the stakeholders as soon as possible and we want feedback as soon as possible.
Is an Information Product just another name for a report?
No.
While an Information Product is often used to describe a report, it can also be used to describe a data service or API, an analytical model or a complex dashboard.
Can’t I just use User Stories to define an Information Product instead?
Yes.
You can start with a large user story and refine it into a number of smaller user stories which can be planned, estimated and committed to by the team to be delivered in an iteration.
However in my experience without the additional details we capture in the Information Product document, the team often struggles to refine the large user story into small enough units of work.
As with all patterns within the AgileData Way of Working, it is the conversations we value over the document.
The Information Product pattern is designed to provide just enough details to improve the team’s conversations on how they will deliver value to the stakeholder / customer as early as possible. And to allow the Stakeholder / Customer to understand what they will have delivered and whatt they will not.
Is there a software solution I can use to capture these?
No, not that I am aware of anyway.
But if you end up creating one,or finding one, please send the details my way so I can update this content.
We are using a flow based agile way of working not iterative delivery, is there still value defining Information Products?
Yes.
One of the challenges for a data analytics team who are using a flow based way of working, is it is difficult for the team to define something as complete (Done Done). There is a tendency for the work to be iterated multiple times.
The boundaries that you identify when defining an Information Product helps the team to define when a task can be treated as complete.
Do we have to fill out the complete Information Product Canvas in one go?
No.
Capture as much of the information as you can when talking to the Stake who are requesting the Information Product, but you do not need to fill the Canvas out in one go.
We will often fill out just the Name and Product Owner and add the Information Product to the backlog, then fill in the rest of the details when the Information Product has been prioritised as up next in the 3 to 6 months time horizon.
However the person asking for the Information Product typically has a lot of details to mind when they ask for it, so we capture that in the Canvas as we talk to them, might as well capture it now if it is easy to capture.
We will often make some quick notes in the Core Business Process section if the data source is identified in the original conversation, but not identify the processes themselves until the Information product has been prioritised. Often we have already delivered another Information Product in the interim and can inherit the data from shared Core Business processes.
How long does it take to complete Information Product Canvas?
It typically takes an hour to discuss the requirements with the Stakeholder and complete the first draft of the Canvas.
If the Stakeholder has done the Canvas process before or has multiple related Information Products we have anaged to get the Canvas completed in 15 minutes.