Product-centric growth
The topic of being product-led or sales-led is one that seems to have gained in importance lately for product leaders who I have recently worked with and coached. One of the challenges they face when trying to decide between product-led growth (PLG) and sales-led growth (SLG) approaches is the diverse landscape of problems and opportunities…
Product and Project Competencies and Roles
In 2011, two organizations – McKinsey and Egon Zehnder – kicked off a large-scale survey to assess the competencies of more than 5000 leaders in companies that were performing poorly and companies that were exceeding expectations. The results of the survey indicated that average organizations focused on the common approach of identifying and improving the…
The engine of agility
The following post is part three of a three-part blog post series, called From the boat of product to the sea of culture, that touches on the interconnectedness of culture, product and agility. Other parts include: Part one – The sea of culturePart two – The boat of product An agile mindset is represented by…
The boat of product
The following post is part two of a three-part blog post series, called From the boat of product to the sea of culture, that touches on the interconnectedness of culture, product and agility. Other parts include: Part one – The sea of culturePart three – The engine of agility A product is a vehicle that…
The sea of culture
The following post is part one of a three-part blog post series, called From the boat of product to the sea of culture, that touches on the interconnectedness of culture, product and agility. Subsequent parts include: Part two – The boat of productPart three – The engine of agility There it lies in all its…
Layers of impact with KPI trees
When using a framework like OKRs, lots of teams struggle to see a direct impact of their day to day work on broader Key Results. This is especially true if the OKRs are set at a department level and the teams in those departments are given the task of coming up with outputs and activities…
Icebergs and KPIs
When setting goals, regardless of the framework or method that you use, it’s usually a good idea to throw in some sorts of measurements, metrics, and/or indicators that help guide you to your goal and give you insights about whether you’re on the right track to have an impact at the higher flight level or…
Needs-Oriented Model of Agile Coaching
“So, what does an Agile Coach do?” Normally around this time of the year, I tend to get this question a lot while meeting up with friends and relatives around a table of plentiful food and drinks. Although this year is a bit different, the fact that I hadn’t yet come up with a satisfactory…
Problem-based roadmaps
Fixed-scope roadmaps are irrelevant in tech products because they try to bring certainty and predictability into an environment where the reality suggests something else. Rather than denying uncertainty, we should embrace it and adjust our planning process to reflect the reality of a complex environment that tech products exist in. Using a build-measure-learn approach, if…
Prerequisites for introducing OKRs
It’s the end of another quarter and your department just struggled to fit the list of initiatives they would either like to do or have been asked to do by their stakeholders into the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) structure because management has noticed that companies like Google and Spotify and using it and reaping…
Lean delivery teams: moving beyond efficiency
Product experts, such as Marty Cagan, have talked about the benefits of having product teams. While I agree with all the benefits that a product team provides, the reality is that lots of highly scaled organizations have feature teams and delivery teams. Rather than looking down on them and dismissing their setup, I like to…
Agility in 5 minutes
When Delivery Hero’s CFO invited me to speak in his department’s all hands last week, I asked myself, “How can I explain the essence of agility in 5 minutes?” A good way to see if you’ve understood a concept is by explaining it to a child in as few words as possible. This task wasn’t…
The Value/Fidelity Matrix
After sharing my thoughts on the topic of product discovery vs delivery and how that can fit in to the greater product strategy, I’d like to share a couple of important concepts for product delivery, which I chat to Jeff Patton about during one of the episodes. If you work in tech product you’ve probably…
OKRs and Dual Track Agility
After having inspirational back and forth conversations with Marty Cagan and Tim Herbig in the past couple of weeks, my mind started dwelling on the relationship between a framework like OKR and the operational functions of Dual Track Agile – discovery and delivery. Further inspiration was drawn from Teresa Torres’ Opportunity Solution tree. The following…