Just about a month ago, Maria Thomas published an interesting article on Apiumhub titled Product Roadmap Importance in Agile Project Management. And I found this article to be interesting for a variety of reasons, but mainly because it talked to the alignment of Agile methodologies with longer-term planning.
It’s this combination, this melding of worlds, that is often overlooked and regularly misunderstood. Normally, you get one of the two following scenarios.
Scenario #1 – the business leader(s), fresh off of a weekend of retreat with their fellow executives, come bursting into the office on Monday. Their caffeine levels have to be 17 times over the legal limit for a Monday morning. They proudly exclaim “follow us as we drag this company into the promise land where jobs are secure, upward mobility is plentiful and bonuses appear to fall from the sky!” However, in their next breath, that same leader locks in a path that is guaranteed to take the company anywhere but where it wants to go. They do that by creating a tactical plan that is so rigid that it fails to anticipate change, pushback or any other external negative factors. Why would they? Not only is the entire organization behind this plan, but the entire world is with us too! (Unsure about the difference between Strategic and Tactical Plans? Click here)
Of course, actually the world isn’t on board. Actually, the world is laughing at your plans. Things of course pop up. Since the tactical plan fails to anticipate anything besides the small subset of hurdles leadership anticipated on its golf-getaway, it doesn’t have the mechanisms in place to handle them. And the whole things promptly blows up in their faces.
And the only saving grace for the employees who are forced to donate weekends and deal with the stress of unrealistic expectations is the sheer size of the implosion that happens. It’s one that they’ll be able to recall for generations to come. Get your popcorn ready folks, the show is about to start!
Scenario #2 – Agile, is often seen as the opposite of that. Agile is seen as providing a lot of flexibility to adjust course, but with little to no planning. So, you’re free to move about however and wherever you’d like, but we aren’t going to give you any feedback as to whether you are getting closer to the store or not. I’m imagining that scene from The Office where Michael Scott follows the GPSs directions too literally and he drives himself and Dwight straight into a lake. Who knows, maybe management does know a short cut and getting rid of ALL structures really IS what’s best?
Ideally, there would be something in the middle. And that brings us back to Maria’s article above and the idea of having some over-arching plan in place, but one that has enough flexibility to overcome obstacles when they present themselves.
Agile with Regards to Innovation
So, why is Agile so important when it comes to Innovation? Well, because if your organization wants to get serious about innovation, and wants to do it well, it needs to be able to pivot when things aren’t working. They need to be able to place small bets to tests theories about the interest in and applicability of new products / processes / concepts, and quickly capitalize on the ones that work while pivoting away from the ones that don’t.
But It All Starts with a Plan
As is the case with Agile project management, the most innovative companies have an Innovation strategy. And that plan is some roadmap or some framework that lays out the key stakeholders, team members and steps to take ideas from conception to completion. And while every company should create and tailor a framework based on their needs, it must have at a minimum:
- A way to capture new ideas from internal and external sources
- A way to evaluate new ideas based on the strategic direction set by corporate leadership
- A way to fully fund new ideas whether it is upfront or on an installment plan
- A way to bring new ideas to market
And while Agile methodologies can certainly be employed during implementation of the ideas, companies actually get the most value out of applying Agile to the evaluation of new ideas.
Evaluating New Ideas using an Agile Mindset
The evaluation period is where companies look to build a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) to identify any challenges with building or implementing the idea, as well as learn about the audience’s interest in the product. During this period, companies have a hypothesis, but not much else to go on. Therefore, their ability to be nimble and adjust the product on the fly will be key to its success.
This MVP is used as a demonstration tool and provides your target audience with a hands-on sample that they can evaluate and that you can use to drive conversation. The feedback coming out of those demos needs to be captured, prioritized, and added to the product backlog.
Based on the outcome of the demos, and the now more accurate backlog of requirements, your engineering team can now provide leadership with an accurate level of work estimations. The initial work your sales team puts in helps identify initial sales strategies and target audiences. And when you start putting these pieces together, what comes out is an accurate, wholistic view for management outlining what it will take to bring a product to market and the return the company can reasonable expect for their effort.
Add to it the fact that similar calculations and measurements are being captured about other efforts, and leadership can now stop guessing about which efforts will have the greatest impact and start making informed decisions.