As businesses continue to supercharge their application life-cycle and rapid app development becomes glued to modern IT frameworks, these shifts are disrupting the way that we think about IT contribution. In the past, development and operations have both been measured by the effort that they put forward on a specific project. The more hours and successful code or operations that you bake into a particular project, the more successful you seem. But, can progressive frameworks as agile development survive in this mentality?
This question has been bounced around for a few years. If the goal of modern development frameworks is to spread responsibility and increase collaboration, does it really make sense to standardize success based on individual contributions? Better yet, is the success of an app measured by metrics that track time contributions and individual efficiencies? Or, is it measured by the value of the end product?
While agile shifts the app cycle left, businesses have to adjust the mentality driving their culture to base success on value, not projects. In 2019, we're seeing thousands of companies change their outlook and culture surrounding the software development life-cycle. Here's why companies are switching from project-based development to product-based development.
"There are both business products and IT products. A product is simply something that has a customer base that it delivers value to." - Carmen DeArdo, former DevOps tech director at Nationwide Insurance [InfoQ]
Before we discuss how product vs. project-based design impacts IT managers, who typically are one of the first to on board the new mentality, we need to understand the differences between products and projects (in terms of the dev life-cycle).
A product is something that satisfies a business or market need. So, that latest automated security software — that's a product. One of the main distinctions between products and projects is that products exist in a life-cycle. From inception to market introductions to continuous updates, products typically last until customers no longer have a need for the solution.
A project is a temporal venture that's undertaken to develop a product. So, instead of being viewed from a lens of semi-permanence, projects are purposefully set to a time-frame.
At first, it may seem like products are the spawn of projects. That's completely correct. So, what does it mean to reframe your dev life-cycle to product-focused instead of project-focused if projects created products?
Now that we know what a product and a project are, let's talk about them in terms of the software development life-cycle.
Project-based development involves thinking of the development and operation of an app as temporary. Employees are typically measured by the effort put forward towards a specific project, and each project could use temporary workers, unique processes, and hyper-specific strategies. This means that projects are often ad-hoc.
Product-based development is a more permanent way of thinking about applications. So, employees are judged on their contribution rather than their individual metrics. This means that product-based development can be thought of as a complementary mindset to agile frameworks. In product-based development, apps are viewed from a perspective of whole-life-cycle-development as opposed to temporary app pipelines.
Let's look at why so many businesses are choosing to move towards product-based design.
One of the key benefits of agile frameworks is the ability to use automated practices throughout the software development life-cycle. But, if development cycles are thought of as temporal, finding ways to justify the expense of automation is difficult. What's the point of automation if it isn't really a core part of your life-cycle? If your business is simply using automation ad-hoc to deal with project-by-project needs, the time and costs associated with automation adoption are likely unnecessary.
But, thinking of the development life-cycle as product-based gives you the flexibility to create business-wide processes that lean on automation to eliminate redundancies. Of course, this saves time and money — which was the point in the first place.
When you think about apps in the light of temporary, it's difficult to glue customer-centricity to your Dev and Ops thought processes. The ultimate goal of any good app is to deliver value to the user. But, if the incentives behind the project are based solely on metrics and individual contributions, convincing devs and op managers to focus on value is difficult.
The project-based design makes this easy. Since value is glued to the project-based design framework, providing value is the goal — not the app itself.
Another significant benefit of product-based development is the ability to spread collaboration. Everyone becomes responsible for the entire app, which means that everyone is invested in the success of the whole application, not just "their" part.
With the product-based design, value is placed on collaboration, not employee-by-employee contributions. Trying to build an agile framework under the microscope of project-based design devalues the entire architecture that makes agile so powerful.
Again, responsibility-spread is an intrinsic benefit of product-based design. Remember, value is coming from app success — not employee success. This means that Dev and Ops don't share separate responsibilities, they share the same one. All that matters is how the app satisfies customers. That's the be-all-end-all of product-based design.
Hiring employees by the project forces fractured dev environments. Even further, basing employee performance on specific projects — which often require role-switches and different metrics — creates bubbles in the development cycle. Goals aren't viewed as long-term, because the app is viewed from the perspective of temporary.
With the product-based design, employees are responsible for the app throughout its lifecycle, which includes post-launch continuation. Of course, the product-based design requires a more temporary outlook on employee roles, which means that employees can focus on the roles that they excel at.
One of the most significant challenges facing Dev and Ops teams in the current agile environment is their mentality towards app development. In the past, the software development life-cycle has been thought of as a group of temporary projects that push out applications. Instead, try thinking about apps as more permanent products. Of course, you can still plan projects. This isn't about a specific process or strategy; it's a complete change in mentality and culture.
To be fair, this isn't a new concept (see Apple and Amazon). But, we've witnessed product-based design explode over the last few years due to the necessity of automation and extreme agility.
If you enjoyed this article click through to read our Ebook on Product based vs project based development: IT Manager's guide to product development in 2019 hope you enjoy the read!
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Originally published May 15, 2019 2:13:57 PM, updated July 15, 2019
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Over the years, we noticed that businesses initially choose solutions that tick all the technical boxes or ones that are least costly. However, emphasis should always be placed on tools that are simple to use, efficient, & that provide a good user experience. We urge our customers to pay close attention to the user experience, especially when it comes to having a return on their investment in remote working.
Not doing so will put your business at a risk of increased support costs as employees become less productive while trying to figure out how to utilise the business’s technology.
On the operational side, there are 3 categories of platforms that we believe are essential:
Foundations of remote working
Systems of record
Systems of engagement
Laptops
Internet Access
VPN: A Virtual Private Network is imperative to remote working as it creates a secure, reliable, & safe connection between the employee & the organization’s resources.
Storage Platform: Every organization needs a cloud storage platform such as TechnAdopt to enable file sharing and easy access for all employees.
Productivity apps: Teamwork is the number 1 pillar of business in which it involves using shared assets like documents, reports, infographics, & structured & unstructured data. These assets can be created with the likes of the popular office suites like Microsoft Office365 in addition to document management systems, corporate intranet, HR Systems, CRM, & ERP to name a few.
Simple Strata: With this shift in work norms, companies might not have the instant visibility on the efforts taken by an employee to complete a certain job, & consequently might not know what to improve first. Our systems will detect causality and based on that, will analyze and provide reports to identify the employees who are facing difficulties in performing their jobs in comparison to others. With this visibility, the company will be able to adjust its new processes or provide support for employees who are facing challenges in the most suitable way.
ESP: The Enterprise Submission Platform is a linear workflow that enables function owners to automate their business processes without reliance on IT personnel. This platform will allow users to create requests and approvers to approve them from any location with the use of the web or the app. It is necessary especially in remote working situations as operations need to keep moving regardless of the whereabouts of users.
Engagement Pro: Engagement Pro is an application that helps you plan, organize, & track projects - all in one visual, collaborative space - to increase visibility & alignment within team members. This tool facilitates remote collaboration on projects.
Opportunity Pro: Every company with a sales department surely should use a CRM platform. Opportunity Pro enables the sales team to improve their winning rates by having accurate forecasts, details about customers & their needs, & keeping track of all actions taken & planned in order to close a deal. Rather than managing each sales team member individually, managers will be able to have top view visibility on all the pipeline remotely and will be able to review team members accordingly.
Mobile Apps:
As we live in the age of a “smart phone take-over”, it is essential that our work is accessible from the number one tool we use constantly. Whether at home or outside, employees should have the option to interact with team members via their phone.
Similarly, employers should expect their employees to have access to their work from anywhere, especially given the remote working situation. For that reason, all of our recommended products are available as mobile apps in addition to web as we have anticipated that a time will come where reliance will be solely on smart phones. We like to think we are pioneers in this field. 😉
Emails
Idenedi: A communication tool that provides an enjoyable user experience is one that sticks. Idenedi is a tool that has proven to be one of the most requested platforms as it combines ease of access with ability to deliver critical information. While emails remain the number one tool for exchanging work-related documents, they are lacking in the push notification department.
With Idenedi, managers will be able to pass important announcements regarding changes in the work environment with absolute assurance that employees will be notified. This is crucial especially in remote working as managers can track to check if important messages have reached everyone. They can even create a space for team members to interact in the comments section, and soon via chat.
As we have provided our recommendations for the infrastructure on the operational side, we also believe that there are steps to be taken to prepare teams mentally for this sudden shift in our work space.
Check out here our tips on how to adapt in the time of a global pandemic.
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Every sales manager knows that taking proper care of the sales team is an unwritten rule of a business to achieve greater heights.
Every business owner dreams of a sales team that is 100% motivated all the time. Unfortunately, this dream is often not a practical reality.
As the pressure of digitisation on sales functions has grown in the past couple of years, companies are looking for new approaches to optimise sales enablement.
In some ways, empowering a a sales team simply means giving them greater autonomy of decision making and thereby brings better outputs. Sales managers seek out for better ways to do so because no marketing mixture is going to be everlastingly successful!
Training is one of the core elements in empowering any workforce. This is also true for a sales team. There are always new technological developments happening in a company's environment. If they are more technical in nature, giving proper training to the team members is a proactive approach.
The overall skill developed by the sales team is depending upon the quality of the training they receive. It is very important to pay attention to each member and shape them as equally trained and skilled.
Nobody needs to tell you that communication and collaboration are the keys to have a healthy sales campaign. It is all about having up-to-date information and keeping everyone on the same page.
Uninterrupted communication through relentless collaboration enables greater dynamism. Authorities should make sure that there is no communication gap and no one in the team is left behind.
Though sales persons are perceived as the smart ones, there needs to be constant empowerment. They should be more customer-centric for the most part. To have greater customer focus, it is important to have strong back up and this can be provided by the manager who offers ultimate support with solid marketing campaigns.
These campaigns should have the essence that attract and keep the customers hooked. In a way, the management is providing them ultimate authority to do more things which is aimed at bringing more fulfilling outcomes.
Offering more money, time off or a great gift is another great way to give employees a goal to work toward. A recent Aberdeen study shows that non-cash incentives are usually more effective than financial compensation, with top performers 31% more likely to prefer non-cash options.
Your best bet of getting the right incentive for your employees is by giving choices and let them vote on what incentive they’d most prefer. It will give your employees a greater sense of involvement, kickstarting a refreshed sense of excitement.
This should be cited as the most important point because, without the contribution of IT, organisations cannot dream of making it big. These days, marketing success needs smart technology solutions. If the sales team needs to be out in the field, why don’t they have a smart sales application?
We must agree that a sales application can do a lot of automation tasks which have been actually pestering the hapless sales team. It is going to be a great remedy as the features are most advanced and help to sort out several sales issues.
Enabling self-service for B2B buyers isn’t the only benefit of digital commerce. By bringing the sales team into the digital channel, B2B merchants can target the most complex parts of the purchasing experience and turn them into opportunities to retain and grow each account.
The competition in B2B commerce is growing, and the increasing expectations for great digital experiences mean that even long-time industry leaders will need to evolve in order to stay ahead. Empowering the sales channel to provide insightful, consultative selling across all their accounts will resolve the channel conflict that many companies struggle with, accelerating growth for years to come.
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Businesses interested in experiencing growth have turned their attention to product development. The development of new products helps breathe new life into the business. The benefits connected to product development include:
While there are many benefits connected to product development, developing a new product isn't without risk. Only one out of every four products that enter the development stage will eventually be launched, and only half of those will meet the developer's expectations.
While there will always be an element of risk connected to launching a new product, one of the best way to mitigate the risk is understanding that one of the reasons so many newly developed products fail is because the company behind the design took a linear approach to the development project. Twenty or thirty years ago, this approach, which is currently called a first-generation approach to product development was highly successful, but things have changed. In recent years, businesses have switched to a style of product development that's called second-generation product development which allowed improved the efficiency of the process while also reducing wasted times and resources.
Recently, some businesses have discovered an even more streamlined method of product development: third-generation product development.
Three business have already made the jump to third-generation agile product development and have enjoyed impressive results.
When most people think about third-generation agile product development, they think of software and app development companies. However one of the companies that has enjoyed the most success after switching to third-generation agile product development is Toyota. Like all vehicle manufacturers, the company is constantly looking for ways to develop new products or improve current products, to do this, they turned to agile development techniques.
Toyota broke their product development management process into six groups:'
Once Toyota set up the organization modules, they created cross-functional teams who worked towards a common goal. Rather than scheduling regular meetings which were time-consuming and slowed the product development product, Toyota urged the heads of each project squad to communicate in writing. When a squad identified a potential risk or the teams reached a major disagreement and face-to-face meeting was arranged.
The success of Toyota's third-generation agile product development process was visible when they successfully brought the RAV4 mini-sport-utility vehicle from the idea stage to product launch in just 24 months.
When PayPal decided to move to agile product development, they created 510 different cross-function teams. They then created a 4-pillar system to improve operations and app development. The company spoke to managers, engineers, and customers and identified ways that they could use agile development to improve their overall operations and launch an app. It took the company about 7 months to launch their new system. Once launched, the agile development practices triggered a 340% revenue increase.
When they decided to try agile product development, Vistaprint had just one goal. They wanted to decrease the amount of time it took to develop a new product. Prior to making the change to agile development, it took about 60 days for the company to go from the idea stage to product launch. After developing cross-functional squads, the company shortened the idea to launch time to a mere 15 days.
Third-generation product development focuses on the use of agile development techniques which enables businesses who are interested in developing software and apps to take a lean approach to developing a product which reduces risk. Once the company is satisfied with the early version of the software and app, they launch the product and start collecting feedback. The business uses the feedback to tweak the software/app, adding features and making improvements that trigger a surge in customer satisfaction.
Product development teams that used the third-generation agile development techniques, reported that:
There are 3 characteristics of third-generation agile product development:
First and second generation product development was a slow process, with it taking months, and sometimes even years, to take the product from the idea stage to product launch. Agile development is different. This third-generation style of product development is fast. The trick to getting the product developed and launched in a short period of time is the creation of product squads that handle multiple tasks simultaneously.
Sprintat has the resources, talent, and tools, to complete agile product development sprints in just 1-4 weeks.
Small groups of cross-functional teams who work on different aspects of a developing product are a key component of third-generation agile product development. Each team works on a specific module.
Module examples include:
Each project squad has a team leader who works with a creative manager who oversees the entire project to keep it on time. The creative manager is responsible for making sure each of the modular come together seamlessly when it's time to launch the new product.
The talent pool of cross-functional product development teams is so deep, that the team members identify risk issues early in the development process and quickly take steps to mitigate the problem. The development teams at Sprintat are trained to identify risks, prioritize the potential threat, and launch risk reduction plans.
Early risk identification paid off for the developer of medical devices who discovered that agile product development identified problems that would have reduced the overall performance of their device by 80% had the problem not been identified and corrected by a product development squad.
Sprintat specializes in helping business who lack the in-house development talent to fully utilize agile techniques while developing products. We help you fill those gaps by providing:
Contact us and schedule a meeting where you'll learn how our agile product development process helps your business grow.
Over the years, we noticed that businesses initially choose solutions that tick all the technical boxes or ones that are least costly. However, emphasis should always be placed on tools that are simple to use, efficient, & that provide a good user experience. We urge our customers to pay close attention to the user experience, especially when it comes to having a return on their investment in remote working.
Every sales manager knows that taking proper care of the sales team is an unwritten rule of a business to achieve greater heights.
A partnership is when two or more people or companies work together as partners. The definition of being a partner is clear- we either win together or lose together, and that is why partners always support each other.