Q1. What is technical debt? Did OPower’s product have technical debt? Why?

Should product
managers be worried about technical debt? Why? How one can manage it?

Technical debt refers to the consequences of hasty architectural design and coding. 
 
Yes, OPower’s products have technical debt because of the rapid pace and reactive mode of
early development efforts; some software components that could have been built as modules
were written in a more haphazard manner. 
 
Yes, PM should be worried by technical debt as it makes it more difficult and costly to layer
new features and functionality into the software and also creates inefficiencies.
 
One can manage it by transitioning to Agile methodology, with which requirements and
solutions evolve in an iterative and incremental manner through collaboration between cross-
functional teams. 
Also, implement a Scrum process in which overlapping development cycles (iterations)
would result in a new software release after a certain time gap.
Maintain a task and issue tracker to facilitate collaboration on new features.
PMs should have matrixed responsibilities which try to capture the best of both approaches
i.e. structure around product components or around initiatives.
Product Development Process:
-       High level product plans (what could we built)
-       Product road map (when should features be build)
-       Wave planning (what would be built)
-       Review what is actually built

Q2 Did Opower have a compelling product vision ? Write a vision narrative for Opower
OPower had a compelling product vision, to be sure. The vision is based on Dan Yates and Alex
Laskey's shared interest in environmental policy and energy saving, which was reflected in the
company's early product. Based on this, the company created a SaaS utility CRM tool to support its
expanded product strategy.

The software as a service tool was a white label web application for households, complete with a
consumer alert and message system, that allowed users to access and inspect home energy statistics.

Foster and Barrett, vice presidents of product management (Foster) and engineering (Jeff Barrett), had
a vision that was perfectly aligned, focusing on the construction of a high-performing product and
engineering group.
Q3 What was the product strategy of OPower? Apply what you learned in today's session to
come up with a new product strategy for Opower.

The goal of the OPower product was to reduce carbon emissions by raising awareness and employing
psychological tricks such as displaying comparison graphical reports. The company has been
successful in fulfilling its goal in the early days since they have clearly defined the product strategy.
Some of the most important aspects of their strategy were:
 1. In the blue, green, and yellow zones, defined the roadmaps and prioritized the features. They
created a token system to allow sales and technical teams to collaborate. Due to increased
competition, sales teams requested a variety of items that were not included in the roadmaps;
the token system assisted in channeling these requests.

Q4 Did Opower have any product principles? If Yes, what were they? Propose one or more product
principles for Opower that could help them make a decision on debate around ABC power’s RFP

OPOWER did have product principles which reflected the vision of its founders
However, Opower built the product using a reactive development technique after a few years and did
not build their own vision for the product. They used the Token method for product development in
order to develop the product quickly. The features of this system were divided into three categories:
blue, green, and yellow. When the product team received an RFP from utility, they reviewed it and
classified the attributes as blue, green, or yellow.
We propose the following principle to assist OPOWER in making a decision on ABC Power's RFP -
"We feel that customer input is the most effective implementation policy available."