Much of the Agile Industry focuses on either idea generation or product execution. What about the missing middle? How do you accelerate moving from Idea through to execution? How do you set your delivery teams up for success irrespective of methodology (SAFe, Scrum, Waterfall, Iterative)?
At a time where customer centricity and speed to market are key, it’s never been more important to ensure Product Discovery is executed effectively to anchor stakeholder agreement of minimal viable product, solution viability and execution approach; providing a solid foundation to move into Product Delivery. Traditionally we have found that 75% our time is spent navigating this space.
IDEAology Consulting is a thought leader in applying Innovative acceleration discovery principles to improve the way individuals and companies navigate Product Discovery.
Many find themselves in a position where their investment in Project Delivery, whether it be SAFe, Scrum or Traditional Waterfall, is not returning the expected results. Problems continue to be experienced and the end goal is compromised;
Teams have too much work in progress
Dependant teams cadence is not synchronised
Customers are not satisfied with the end deliverables
Timeframes are too long
Disconnect between stakeholders
Technical problems arise
The Business Case is not realised
Team morale is compromised
Whilst there has been much emphasis on different execution methods in the industry, delivery starts at Idea and some would argue it actually starts at Strategy. If the focus remains on execution only, the battle is already lost. Much of the shaping, framing and insights start from ‘Idea’, or what we term Product Discovery. It is important that the methods embraced in Product Discovery are setting the foundation for how the team will be executing in Product Delivery. For example, how many projects have you seen reverse engineer their product backlog to give themselves a scope? In other words, they are making it up. This is no way to execute.
So why does this problem continue to exist? Seems like an obvious problem to solve.
There are a number of reasons. Often in large organisations, there is a segregation of duties. This means that Strategy, Portfolio Management, Product Discovery and Product Delivery may all be owned by different teams with little synchronisation between the functions. Continuity of knowledge and ownership is disjointed. Secondly, the disciplines around technology delivery have been evolving for many years. This is due to the risk inherent in technology delivery, especially when transitioning change to production. The last thing a technology team want to do is disrupt production and have the Core systems crash. Therefore, the focus on repeatable and stable process has been well invested in. The risk of doing Product Discovery poorly or getting it wrong is a less tangible risk. It is much more difficult to measure and therefore, has been less of a focus. Until now.
In today’s competitive landscape no longer is delivering ‘something’ good enough. Companies can no longer afford to get it wrong. The focus is shifting to not only investing in repeatable methods for Product Delivery, but also Product Discovery and the need to set projects up for delivery success. There is now also an emphasis on making Business risk as important as Technology risk.
Now that the problem is understood, the issue is how to solve for it. Often in Product Discovery, there are many involved with an operational background, which involves a different type of rigor than that applied to Product Delivery. You may find that many stakeholders have not had the benefit of previous project experience. Therefore, to be successful, any method adopted in this space needs to take stakeholders on a Journey of Discovery with easy, repeatable tools and techniques which achieve significant outcomes. The methods needs to enable execution by understanding the entrance needs to Product Delivery. It needs to bring all the stakeholders on the Journey through Product Discovery and into Product Delivery seamlessly maintaining continuity. It also needs to be a cultural enabler. Whilst there are many tools out there, it is difficult to understand how to apply these in a connected way to work towards a target state.
Let’s explore the underlying principles we are aiming to achieve and how this can be achieved by integrating traditional as well as more innovative techniques and applying a proven, repeatable Product Discovery Method.
For more information <<https://www.ideaologyconsulting.com.au/courses/leading-product-discovery-1>>