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I'm sure leaders, all over the world, are struggling with their future. What will attract customers? Which new market behaviors will we see? How long will the downturn last? What margins are feasible? What will make my company survive?
Product development is the solution
The art of innovative Product Management, with the development of Lean-Agile mindset and frameworks, has for many years become more and more important. I am so sure this development will accelerate so much more. Since the thing with Lean and Agile is all about taming the uncertainty.
The chance of success through cost-savings and supply-chain/production optimization is getting lower. Instead, company leaders need to focus more on building the capability to innovate, create new products, and interact with the market to validate what is flying or not.
My prediction is that Product Management will be the key. Yes, it was important before as well. But, now the pressure to be able to quickly deliver what customers will buy is much stronger.
The most important work for Leaders is to build the capability to deliver the right value.
Just forget to do well-defined plans and product designs. When dealing with this massive uncertainty, building up new knowledge, and adjust is going to be your way forward.
We will need much more of, what many companies already are doing. Experimentation and measuring of business results. Don't worry, plenty of companies have been doing it for a while and many tools and techniques are available.
What to do in general
The time is over when the best way to organize was in functional silos with local responsibility and performance metrics. Whether you are promoting silos or not, your business is operating in valve streams. That is all strategic steps needed from start until some kind of client or user value appears.
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Product development is the solution
The art of innovative Product Management, with the development of Lean-Agile mindset and frameworks, has for many years become more and more important. I am so sure this development will accelerate so much more. Since the thing with Lean and Agile is all about taming the uncertainty.
My prediction is that Product Management will be the key. Yes, it was important before as well. But, now the pressure to be able to quickly deliver what customers will buy is much stronger.
We will need much more of, what many companies already are doing. Experimentation and measuring of business results. Don't worry, plenty of companies have been doing it for a while and many tools and techniques are available.
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What to do to fix it in detail
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It is your choice if you want to build your organization around these value streams or stay in the functional responsibility paradigm. But, take the time to think about your choice now and prepare for the worst.
In almost all organization I can see an unclear decision order where organizational capability and product delivery are mixed and handled so unclear that not much is coming out. All organizations who want to challenge the competition have to take organizational design and product development flow much more seriously.
Some things to remember will be even clearer
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