I have come to believe that product teams are not failing because of poorly implemented agile methodologies, but poorly implemented product development practices.
Everybody is so excited to build code and lots of it, because that's tangible, compared to actually learning what works.
An agile team manifests its internal power by amazing rituals which get everybody pumped and excited, while the team is measured against predictabiltiy, productivity, quality and stability. But, what we are really lacking in the measuring is *outcome*.
That is the single most important factor defining if the product is going to be a success or not.
If the agile development team is not sharing the accountability for real business outcome together with product manager, then that team should be guided by a *product coach* NOT *agile coach*.
You can argue, that quality KPI includes the defects & customer satisfaction, but that I believe only helps the team to make 3-5 degree corrections, not 30-45 degree ones, that sometimes are necessary.
I very much agree that the failure behind many products has probably less to do with the methodology or framework used and more with whether the fundamentals were worked on. If the methodology or framework was the answer, we would see success happening only in teams and organizations that use A and not B. In fact, there is an excessive obsession with trying to find the perfect methodology, framework or tool. This is why the industry is always behind the biggest fad which is exhausting, if you ask me. But I also think that coaching can be spot on and that might be why we see so many businesses, podcasts, newsletters (look at us!) popping up to help product managers do their job. Because it is hard and it's impossible to get all answers from within the organization one is working in. Sometimes the answer to what we are looking for does not exist. We need to find it by mixing and testing things like a mad scientist and hope we do not run out of a sponsor before we get the experiment to work.
I completely agree with you that frameworks are not a magic solution and there is no single and definitive product management framework. However, frameworks do help to focus on the right aspects of product management and offer ways to do so. The key issues are not the frameworks, but effectively understanding who the target audience is, how the product solves the problems of its target audience and creates value, and how all this can be done in a way that is commercially viable.
Well, to be perfectly blunt, based on my experience I don’t feel like most of software development is really assessed or thought of as an investment. It just gets done because the person with the most charisma or loudest voice or highest salary says it must be done, no risk mitigation. That’s why I say cost centre, not investment, but I suppose it can also be called a bad investment. In any case in most companies powered by tech it is certainly the most costly department.
Thank you for the excellent comparison between the product and agile coaches. I think one reason why agile coaches are often unable to adequately coach product managers is that they typically rely on the Scrum methodology, where the role of the product manager is defined as a product owner, which only covers a subset of what a product manager should do.
I have come to believe that product teams are not failing because of poorly implemented agile methodologies, but poorly implemented product development practices.
Everybody is so excited to build code and lots of it, because that's tangible, compared to actually learning what works.
An agile team manifests its internal power by amazing rituals which get everybody pumped and excited, while the team is measured against predictabiltiy, productivity, quality and stability. But, what we are really lacking in the measuring is *outcome*.
That is the single most important factor defining if the product is going to be a success or not.
If the agile development team is not sharing the accountability for real business outcome together with product manager, then that team should be guided by a *product coach* NOT *agile coach*.
You can argue, that quality KPI includes the defects & customer satisfaction, but that I believe only helps the team to make 3-5 degree corrections, not 30-45 degree ones, that sometimes are necessary.
I very much agree that the failure behind many products has probably less to do with the methodology or framework used and more with whether the fundamentals were worked on. If the methodology or framework was the answer, we would see success happening only in teams and organizations that use A and not B. In fact, there is an excessive obsession with trying to find the perfect methodology, framework or tool. This is why the industry is always behind the biggest fad which is exhausting, if you ask me. But I also think that coaching can be spot on and that might be why we see so many businesses, podcasts, newsletters (look at us!) popping up to help product managers do their job. Because it is hard and it's impossible to get all answers from within the organization one is working in. Sometimes the answer to what we are looking for does not exist. We need to find it by mixing and testing things like a mad scientist and hope we do not run out of a sponsor before we get the experiment to work.
I completely agree with you that frameworks are not a magic solution and there is no single and definitive product management framework. However, frameworks do help to focus on the right aspects of product management and offer ways to do so. The key issues are not the frameworks, but effectively understanding who the target audience is, how the product solves the problems of its target audience and creates value, and how all this can be done in a way that is commercially viable.
I'd love to understand more you're thinking behind:
>Software development is still one of the biggest cost centres (yes-yes, theoretically it is an investment…)
Well, to be perfectly blunt, based on my experience I don’t feel like most of software development is really assessed or thought of as an investment. It just gets done because the person with the most charisma or loudest voice or highest salary says it must be done, no risk mitigation. That’s why I say cost centre, not investment, but I suppose it can also be called a bad investment. In any case in most companies powered by tech it is certainly the most costly department.
Thank you for the excellent comparison between the product and agile coaches. I think one reason why agile coaches are often unable to adequately coach product managers is that they typically rely on the Scrum methodology, where the role of the product manager is defined as a product owner, which only covers a subset of what a product manager should do.