Agile Product Development

Traditional "management", even most software product management, is Industrial-Age Command-and-Control thinking that is net-negative for managing creatives. We need a re-framing of Agile Software Development with a business-building software Product Development mindset. Rapidly Iterative based on FeedBack. A bit post-Lean-Startup.

(For a tangible set of practices, see my Product Development Process.)

I sometimes frame this as Flow-based Product Development.

• But that's not like Principles Of Product Development Flow, more about maximizing Flow State. Trying to create momentum, compounding.
• Though there's a risk of being biased toward incrementalism within a mis-designed product strategy (congruence bias).
• So it has to be reflective, iterative (reflective thinker).
• Maybe a Bottleneck framing integrates those perspectives?

Mindset/worldview

Agility, Context, and Team Agency

CheckList/Manifesto

mimic Agile Manifesto in structure/format

• congruent multi-layered strategic context over hand-waving and wishful thinking
• compelling customer pains over complicated solutions
• incremental/iterative continuous discovery/thinking in bets over roadmaps and market research
• cross-functional self-contained teams with agency over matrixed committees

inspired mainly by

• Martin Cagan: posts on top-down pre-requisites (Agility, Context, and Team Agency)
• Ron Jeffries: esp Nature Of Software Development and (2019-09-16) Jeffries Twelve Talk
• Clarke Ching (scope-splitting on bottleneck, see Rolling Rocks Downhill)
• Teresa Torres: Opportunity Solution Tree, Continuous Discovery
• John Cutler: general pragmatic/human-centered product management
• Ash Maurya's Running Lean
• SciFi for Product People :)

Positive

Mission/Vision/Lean Canvas -> Product Vision/Product Strategy -> OKR (see Strategic Context)

• Triple-loop Product Management, Data-Informed Product Management for Thinking in Bets
• Continuous Discovery for OODA for Compounding value.

Product Team Members Report to the Team Leader.

Development Queue driven by BottleNeck-oriented OpportunitySolutionTree.

Lesstimating

Agility: Every team can deploy multiple times per week. Near-Continuous Delivery.

Negative

Matrix management

Big Projects ("Product Projects should be Cattle, not Pets") (hah note "Pet Project" AntiPattern)

RoadMap

Gantt Chart

Sprints, Velocity