Agile Product Management Is The Only Way Forward

Over twenty years ago, many people gathered at a ski resort and created the Agile Manifesto. At first, this was a crucial moment for the digital technology industry, but later, it was adopted everywhere, from manufacturing to human resources and education.

Companies were initially skeptical, then went through the adaption curve, and finally, all the statements and practices described in a manifesto and all frameworks built on top of it became necessary. University graduates heard about waterfall only in the Introduction to Project Management course, and most of their practice runs during exercise were in an iterative process that, to some extent, can be called agile.

As skills and competencies become a must-have, organizations and their leaders are not ready to pay anymore for experts in the field, and they expect all employees to follow. The days of unlimited funding from VCs are over. The economy is getting more tense, and competitors will not allow anyone to spend years on a project that has never been proven to work for clients first.

The only way from now on is to make sure that everything that we know about Agile is adapted to the Product Management competencies of a specific company and that everyone is aware of the challenges and actions required to get over the line with somehow working project that required additional adjustments rather the complete rework. Small and huge companies now have to understand at any point what they built, for whom, and how to measure results at any point of their journey.

Agile is not only a daily meeting, team velocity chart, and kanban board

We speak about the state of the industry that now expects everyone to be an expert in a field. We must remember that even when experts were designated roles in the teams - it was not that straightforward. The general state of the art was flooded with fake certifications, and people rebranded Waterfall frameworks with new names and roles. Hence, the board felt they had implemented a transformation while still having the same tight grip on the product.

While embedding agile practices in your product management, we must remember what it is to be agile. This is not the set of tools you use or the number of iterations you do per month - rather, a state of mind, constant collaboration, and striving for excellence to release the biggest possible amount of value that makes a difference for the customer. No matter what you do or your role, without following the northern start of a manifest, most of the value will be lost, and this is a significant part of the path of any company as it builds new competence for its product management.

Product management ownership is shared

Most companies are now transferring from project management to product management, where the same people perform on the same track of products or specific evolution to allow long-term results and the stack of competence to be exploited. While one specific person, usually under the title of Product Manager, is accountable, it takes more than one person to get the value of the manifesto’s benefits truly.

It is a painful and long journey, but that’s the beauty of the Product Management/Ownership model - once the team is established, unless something significant happens, they will drive the specific track for a long time. Investment in core competencies will eventually pay off. While there is a big temptation to ditch all the long-term goals for immediate effects, you should stand against it, as this is the only way to reach the end goal in the current environment.

Setting up metrics, understanding the client, and understanding what each element in the process means while stopping the development initially will eventually pay off later. One person cannot achieve these results. Thus, the only way forward is to share the ownership across the team.

Measure what matters

Analysis paralysis is a common disease that strikes most teams developing new products. The amount of data around is enormous, and if you ask Google what the best metrics for effective product management are, you will get a list of a couple of hundred metrics. Some of them might be indeed useful, but the majority of them will not be.

This is an absolute mastery of understanding the crucial items of the process and product that will get you to the state of the product you want. But again, this is the beauty of Product management - you are here for some time, so there is an opportunity to build a track of experiments that will allow you to get to the state where you understand what matters and find a way of measuring them effectively.

We have described the evidence-based management approach, which focuses on four key value areas. While this might be a bit of an advanced approach if you have just started, some of the items can be implemented straight away, and who knows, maybe they will be ideal in your case.

What’s next?

There is no reason to be gloomy about the future. The economy, digital technology, and product management are evolving. What was effective before and was extremely popular might not be the same now, but this is the beauty of Agile. There is an opportunity to understand that something is wrong and create a pivot that will get your team and product to the state you desire.

The essence of being Agile is to adapt to what is on the horizon and take action rapidly while staying on the course to achieve your mission and goals. So do not hesitate to try - most likely, you will reach the destination.