With apologies and gratitude to both Sirs Gilbert and Sullivan, I have shamelessly appropriated their famous Major-General’s Song from their popular 1879 comic opera ‘The Pirates of Penzance.’
Based on the raucous reception to my singing the first 2 verses at the end of my presentation “Five Things I Learned About Lean MVP as a Professional Opera Singer” at Red Hat Agile Day 2017 … I will be offering an encore performance of all 3 versus at an upcoming ‘Speed Talks’ gathering of the Agile Leadership Network, RTP this coming November 14, 2017.
And this is where you, my adoring fans and generous readers at Medium.com play a leading role, as I hope to iterate through these following replacement lyrics by means of the baked-in comments system.
Just please keep in mind that some of the wording is a bit contrived so as to keep the arietta singable.
So thank you in advance, I look forward to your feedback!
‘I Am the Very Model of a Modern Product Manager’
Verse 1
I am the very model of a modern product manager,
I’ve information capital and technical and customer;
I know the things of Agile, I can quote its dozen principles,
From change collaboration to delivery sustainable.
I’m very well acquainted too with scrum teams capabilities,
I understand sprint planning, both in sizing and priorities;
I offer stories every Sprint to suit a squad’s capacity
(pause … bothered by rhyme)
With many cheerful burn-down charts about a team’s velocity!
I’m very good at integral and different’al calculus,
I know the science used to find a feature asomatous;
In short, in matters technical and capital and customer,
I am the very model of a modern Product Manager.
Verse 2
My KPIs are bountiful, in order alphabetical,
I gather logs and metrics , both the vanity and tactical.
I like to use deep learning though my data all is supervised.
Engaging in detection to uncover use anomali.
In methods of release, like Git Flow, I am very capable,
With feature toggles, all in branches, in a state releasable;
I measure builds for learning in a model that is always Lean
(pause … bothered by rhyme);
Auto-mating testing to ensure release code that is clean.
I offer expertise, as well, in matters architectural,
I understand web services, both SOAP and Rep’sentational
In short, in matters technical and capital and customer,
I am the very model of a modern Product Manager.
Verse 3
I know our Agile founders such as Cockburn, Schwaber, Sutherland,
I answer hard hueristics, I resist the urge to over-plan;
I rail in analytics (possibly infographics?) at the crimes of upfront estimates,
Prepondering hypotheses whose value are commensurate.
On bug tickets I must insist on step lists reproducible,
Addressing debt that’s technical whenever it is possible;
In every backlog item I supply a set scenario
(pause, think aloud for rhyme),
And acceptance tests articulating when a feature’s good to go.
I know the risk of P.M.P. and of the girth of waterfall,
Eschewing Gantt and Pert charts, and work breakdowns that are structural;
In short, in matters technical and capital and customer,
I am the very model of a modern Product Manager.
El Fin!
Again, let me offer my appreciation to all leaving comments. I hope to reward your efforts with a recording of the above once I get my not-so-upfront plans for a weekly Agile product management related podcast launched!