Excelling Modern Digital Product Management with Business Agility
Covering 3 Agile fundamentals useful to Product Management Business Agility
First things first.
Agile is a term that is exploited in its usage and more often applied with limited context, need, and with even lower spirit. It needs to be mentioned here that while Agile is often used in the context of software development, the application of Agile mindset and Agility is much broader than SLDC. Also, Product Management does not happen entirely within the Agile framework and there are numerous Product functions outside of the Agile framework depending on organizational setup, team maturity, and other factors. In this post, I am just highlighting how an Agile mindset can help a Product Manager improve PDLC effectiveness.
Now, Let’s get started!
Products and Product Managers have been here for quite some decades now. Over the years, Agile has also evolved, adapted & flavored itself to suit varied industries, environments & objectives. However, the need for Agility has never been as critical as it is in today’s business scenario.
This article will analyze enhanced role, need and importance of Agile and Agility in the area of modern Digital Product Management
Since the evolution of the IT industry, we have been very focused on words like 'Project', 'Project Management', etc. These terms are often associated with traditional ways of working that are less conducive to business agility. It was the central word at the time when IT was just seen as a support function. However, things are shifting at a faster rate than ever imagined. Today the role of IT is transforming from a mere enabler or support function to a major business driver, capable of productizing solutions and enabling force behind Product Lead Growth (PLG) of any product or organization.
This is resulting in the transition of IT function from just a cost center to a major revenue center.
Modern digital products are managed by smart and informed Product Managers, who are supposed to balance between customer needs & demands, stakeholder/sponsor expectations, cost & efficiency management, development & support burn-downs, ongoing marketing & sales functions, and last but not least super dynamic business scenarios.
Achieving business agility empowers Product Managers to lead with confidence Modern Digital Product Management
To manage such a vast and diverse challenging audience the product manager needs the virtue of 'Transparency, Efficiency & Ever Evolving Mindset'.
Agile as a framework facilitates value maximization i.e. delivering maximum value at the earliest at minimum cost.
Transparency
Product Managers need to be on top of every aspect of their product and at the same time keep different stakeholders informed with the extent/level of information needed based on their 'Interest' & 'Power' (Refer to Interest - Power metric framework for details). Agile ceremonies such as Daily stand-up, Sprint planning, Sprint demos, etc. complemented with reports such as burn-down charts, etc. make provision for greater transparency and the required level of detail.
If used diligently, these mechanisms add multiple notches to the level of transparency for the varied interests of different stakeholders
Efficiency
Product managers function under pressure to bring out the maximum value of the product at minimum level of investment. This is one of the key responsibilities of a 'Value Optimizer' i.e. Product Manager
Agile by its basic principle focuses on value optimization through the use of Product Backlogs (Ordered feature list - for value maximization) and sprint backlogs (Detailed item list - with exact end user's behavior in mind). It also advocates having the MVP (Minimal Viable Product) first over the full-featured product. MVPs then need to be put in the hands of target customers to understand their behavior/feedback and improvise the MVP further to gradually move towards a matured product through 'n' number of such cyclic iterations.
Thus, Agile paves the way for product teams to have efficiency as the core of their processes and reduces waste.
Ever Evolving Mindset
Working with nascent stage idea, developing it into MVP, iterate with MVP to grow it as a successful product loved by its customers is the dream of any Product Manager.
Most products have a very dynamic environment in terms of changing stakeholder priorities, fast-changing customer expectations/needs, ever-evolving digital technology space, and many other small and large factors. To navigate such an unpredictable and ever-changing ecosystem, PMs work with a mindset that is also evolving with time and circumstances.
Agile works as the medium to enable passing and embedding this ever-evolving mindset into the process, tools & techniques e.g. making product backlog re-prioritization as an ongoing process, adapting at the daily level through daily stand-ups, adapting at sprint level through sprint retrospective ceremonies, etc.
That’s it for now. More in the next edition.
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