The ‘Magic Box’ Problem, and How to Get Out of It

September 4, 2021

One of the most common frustrations you’ll hear from Agile teams is that stakeholders always want too much, too soon, for too little. Why? The Magic Box problem is often the culprit. Your software org is in that box, and helping stakeholders see inside greatly contributes to smoother interactions between the business and your org. In this session we’ll discuss how we got into the box, effective ways to make the box less ‘magic’, and develop business-friendly transparency into how your teams actually work to deliver value. Daniel Witenberg, Senior Product Manager at VMware Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/Pivotal/the-magic-box-problem-and-how-to-get-out-of-it

5 Conversations You Should Be Having About Your User Stories

If a story is a placeholder for a conversation, when does that conversation happen? Who has it? What do the...

Next Video

The Brilliant Practice of Balanced Platform Teams

Running a modern platform can be messy. We face ever-increasing stakes, uncertainty, and complexity. It onl...

The ‘Magic Box’ Problem, and How to Get Out of It

Previous

Next Video

Related content in this Stream

When building enterprise software, looking at user adoption from two perspectives helps ensure stakeholder buy-in and happy users.

Designing and building APIs might seem like a different animal from traditional customer-facing products, but using some of the same principles can ensure a more successful result.

Why the question "What do you love about your job?" is the best way to kick off a user interview.

We can still write valuable stories—we just have to reframe our idea of user value. And that means redefining our idea of a user.

Throughout the DoD, many branches of the military are starting to see the value in agile software delivery as a way to deliver capabilities faster and cheaper. Yet despite the favor for agile, many ar

Defining success metrics can be daunting for even experienced product managers. This post explains how one simple question ("How do we know we did a good thing?") can help you create better metrics.

Maintaining an efficient and productive software org is hard enough when it’s just a few teams—how do you keep it delivering high-priority value when it’s growing rapidly, without continuously hiring

As Product Managers, we have a love-hate relationship with product roadmaps. For example, in the past, we've struggled to answer questions such as: - How to create a roadmap that communicates

Many enterprises have enjoyed amazing results by adopting agile methods, but that success is not without its challenges. Increasing code quality, shipping value faster, and getting better software out

Learn the core values of the Balanced Team approach to product development, as well as the benefits these values can bring to your own team.

Measure Intensity, Frequency, and RecencyAs a product team, how do you know which problem to solve? This question might be hard to answer, especially if you don’t understand your customers...

Aloka Penmetcha, Director of Product Management at Pivotal San Francisco, maps out six tests she recommends all teams consider using to assess the quality of their outcome-oriented roadmaps.

If a story is a placeholder for a conversation, when does that conversation happen? Who has it? What do they talk about? Here are five moments engineering and product should be checking in with each.