Overcoming Common Hurdles in Product Development

Is your team struggling with organizational challenges, unclear goals, or missed deadlines? These issues often point to product development dysfunction. At the core, these product development inefficiencies usually come from three root problems:

• Operating with a project mindset instead of a product mindset
• Focusing too heavily on scope rather than value
• Lacking a clear approach to organizing digital product work

To realign your team, you must first identify the symptoms. From there, you can implement processes that lead to better outcomes.

Operating with a Project Mindset Rather Than a Product Mindset

When teams operate with a project mindset, certain patterns emerge. You may notice the following symptoms:

• Scope, budget, and timing are treated as fixed constraints.
• The team delays launch until everything feels “perfect.”
• User interviews are no longer a priority.
• Execution of written requirements outweighs learning or discovery

Teams that are stuck in a project mindset often fear failure. They’ve likely experienced the negative results of software projects done poorly, such as never-ending timelines and wasted money. As a result, these teams spend months planning and documenting. They try to predict every detail upfront and don’t release a product until everything is completed.

However, when companies and teams adopt a product mindset, they quickly gain the ability to properly manage their scope and reduce their fear of failure. A product mindset reduces the risk of wasted time and money by ensuring a functional MVP that can grow and evolve over time. When companies eliminate this “project over product” mindset, they can  accelerate the way they do business by quickly creating a tangible product that drives value.

Focusing More on Scope Than Value

Some common signs that your team is overly focused on scope at the expense of value include:

• Your leadership team has more ideas for features than your team can actually implement.
• Your development team is constantly fighting scope creep.
• The lead developer seems to be in charge of the product.
• No one is discussing the desired outcome of the project anymore.

Teams that focus too heavily on scope aim to identify every detail upfront, often because they start with too big of a vision. More often than not, they experience disappointment and frustration when the scope of their project inevitably changes.

While project management has traditionally focused on the construction of physical spaces, like bridges and buildings, and teams had to identify every single detail of their scope up front, the nature of software projects requires (and allows for) more flexibility. When teams focus on value over scope, they are able to produce an MVP, then test it with customers and other stakeholders. This research almost always uncovers ideas that allow your team to adjust its path accordingly and position the company for ongoing growth.

Since almost every project undergoes changes in scope, teams should follow the pattern of sprints and cycles to allow for flexibility, growth and realistic expectations.

Lack of Understanding in Organizing Digital Product Development Work

Symptoms of insufficient understanding of how to organize a digital product development team include:

• Your teams haven’t studied product development and come from disciplines like development, marketing or business.
• Team members aren’t thinking iteratively and instead prefer big-bang releases.
• Teams are inward-focused and think they know more than anyone else. There seems to be a divide between the development team and the business team.
• The product owner isn’t clearly defined, and product launches are managed by the development team.

Teams that are unfamiliar with agile development typically experience both rigidity in their processes and a tendency to accidentally overspend. Many teams have been burned in the past when presenting a budget to a vendor, so they’re often hesitant to adopt this way of working. However, teams don’t have to commit to a substantial budget from the outset. The value proven from that first cycle will earn more budget, if necessary, to meet the goals of the software or the overarching business goals.

A successful strategy for achieving this is to organize your timeline and priorities by six-week cycles. This concept works well in software systems because these products don’t fit neatly into compartments; rather, they evolve over time. The biggest benefit to working in six-week cycles is that you can build the right system for your team, even if it’s not exactly what they predicted at the beginning.

Continue the Diagnosis

Your team may be dealing with more than one of these problems at once. Symptoms can be subtle. Continue to monitor team performance and track progress against your product roadmap at regular intervals. However, most importantly, don’t aim for perfection. Focus on iterative improvements and asking the right questions.

If your team is experiencing symptoms of product development dysfunction, contact Augusto to explore how we can help realign your team and set you up for success.

Originally published on ProductCraft.com

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