Forefront Product Consulting LTD

Is Agile Making Your Business Slower? Agile was supposed to speed things up. Instead, it’s become the very thing it set out to replace: bloated, bureaucratic, and disconnected from real outcomes. Sprints create artificial deadlines. Stand-ups turn into routine check-ins. Feature releases happen on a schedule—not when customers actually need them. The result? More process. Less progress. It’s time for a new approach: Lean Product Delivery. ? What makes it different? Flow Efficiency > Sprint Cadence → Work moves continuously, not in two-week chunks. Outcome-Driven > Feature-Driven → Measure success by impact, not output. Automate Everything → CI/CD eliminates bottlenecks, not creates them. Customer Pull > Internal Push → Build what users actually need, when they need it. A Fortune 200 company made the switch. The impact? Release cycles dropped from 1 month to 1-2 days. Hotfixes cut by 80%. Throughput increased by 50%. Agile helped teams work better. Lean Product Delivery helps businesses move faster. If Agile is slowing you down, maybe it’s time to rethink the system. Is your company ready to make the shift?

Minimum Lovable Product? It’s just waterfall in disguise. I feel like some folks don't know what 'viable' OR 'love' means. Most of my users have been regular people, not idealized Silicon Valley technophiles. "We need it to be more polished." "Let’s make sure users love the experience." "An MVP isn’t enough—we need an MLP!" Sound familiar? This isn’t innovation. It’s old-school waterfall thinking, repackaged in modern product buzzwords. The Minimum Viable Product already bakes in the quality needed to make it viable. It is not some barely functioning piece of crap that we are punting into the market with no expectations of solving customer problems. Viability = sustainability, profitability, and long-term success. It’s not just about a working product—it’s about market fit, financial sustainability, operational feasibility, and strategic advantage. MLP? It’s just a way to justify overbuilding before launch. Here’s the problem: ?? It delays time to market. More polish = more time. More time = lost momentum. ?? It assumes we know what users will love. Spoiler: We don’t. That’s why we launch, learn, and iterate. ?? It’s a perfectionist’s excuse. "Lovable" is subjective. What matters is whether users can use it and get value from it. We’re not creating love at launch. We’re creating learning. Want to build a great product? Focus on speed to value, not subjective perfection. Ship. Learn. Iterate. Repeat. Or keep reinventing the wheel. Your call. What do you think—MVP or MLP? Let’s discuss ?? #ProductManagement #MVP #Agile #LeanStartup #BuildMeasureLearn #Tech #Startups #TimeToMarket #Innovation #ProductDevelopment #GoToMarket

Product Ops in 2025: Why “Feature Count” No Longer Matters (Shipping more features ≠ success. Here’s what actually matters.) For years, product teams measured success by asking, “How much did we build?” That mindset is dying. 2025’s best Product Ops teams focus on outcomes, not outputs. What does that mean? ?? Retention over releases → Are customers staying? Are they engaged? If not, shipping 50 new features won’t save you. ?? Revenue impact over roadmap completion → The best PMs know: A shorter roadmap with the right priorities beats a bloated backlog. ?? Customer success over “on-time delivery” → Did the new feature solve a problem? Or did it just check a box? The question isn’t “What did we build?” anymore. It’s “What changed because of it?” What’s the most important metric your team tracks? Drop it in the comments.?? #ProductOps #Metrics #ProductManagement #DataDriven

The PM job market right now is absolutely brutal. I’ve seen so many talented product managers struggling after the massive tech layoffs of 2023 and 2024. "We’re looking for someone with a more [leadership, tactical, technical, strategic] background." "Your experience is great, but we need deeper industry expertise." "We went with another candidate who was a better ‘culture fit.’" Heard these before? These interviews aren’t just tests of skill—they’re a game of impossible expectations. When a hiring manager tells you, “We need someone technical,” but the job description is all about stakeholder alignment. When you’re told, “We want an execution-focused PM,” but the role is 80% strategy. When you make it to the final round—only to lose out to an internal hire. The reality? The job market is shifting. Fast. For years, companies hired PMs who could “do it all.” Now, they want specialists. But what they really need? Product leaders who can adapt. Here’s how to stay ahead: ?? Tailor everything. One-size-fits-all resumes don’t work. Customize your pitch, examples, and stories to fit each company’s needs. ?? Research like a PM. Don’t just prep for interviews—study the product, the business model, the market. Show them you already think like you work there. ?? Play the game smarter. Hiring isn’t just about merit. It’s about positioning. Build relationships, get referrals, and make sure your name gets in front of the right people. ?? Stay ahead of the demand. AI, PLG, monetization—PMs who keep learning will always have an edge. The job is evolving, and so should you. Tech is a tough place to be job-hunting right now. But the PMs who adapt, position, and evolve will be the ones who land on top. Are you seeing this shift too? Let’s talk ?? https://lnkd.in/gpyw_jrU

The Silent Killer of Great Teams It’s not bad ideas. It’s not bad engineers. It’s misalignment. At a Fortune 200 company, every team had their own roadmap. No shared KPIs. No unified goal. Every new feature was a battle. Releases were late, buggy, and reactive. We introduced High Agreement & Structured Product Ops: ?? AI-generated discovery cards → Focused teams on real impact ?? KPI-based prioritization → Killed "the loudest voice wins" ?? Lean CI/CD → Cut release time from 30 days → 2 days The transformation? Immediate. https://lnkd.in/dp87B6fU #Leadership #Innovation #Strategy

Product Management isn’t enough anymore. Let’s talk about Product Ops. This is something I have been trying to wrap my arms around for some time. My passion has always been in the process of helping teams thrive, I have found that this has increasingly been too much work for product management alone. Product Managers need to be sure we are building the right THING, but Product Ops ensures we are delivery the right WAY.

Do you need Product Leadership or Product Coaching? Let’s get real: Building products isn’t easy. I’ve spent almost a decade watching brilliant teams get stuck because they were missing the right kind of help. Some needed a front‐line Product Lead to make the tough calls and deliver results. Others needed a Product Coach who could train their team to do the job themselves. If you’re a VP of Tech (or higher), you already know time is precious. So let’s cut to the chase. Here’s how you figure out which one you need—right now. When You Need a Product Lead -You need someone to own the vision—yesterday. If your product is directionless or you’re behind schedule, hire a lead who can steer the ship. They’ll say “No” when necessary and push the team to deliver. -You’re lacking a decisive voice in the room. In high‐stakes decision‐making, democracy can be deadly. Sometimes you need a single point of authority to make the final call and align everyone else behind it. -You’re about to pivot or face a major product moment. Large strategic shifts need a bold leader. A Product Lead will set clear objectives, hold people accountable, and get results fast. -You need immediate metrics mastery. If OKRs, KPIs, or daily dashboards are scattered, a Product Lead can focus the team. They own the goals and drive accountability to hit them. When You Need a Product Coach =Your existing team needs skill‐building. If your product managers are smart but green, a coach will help them level up. They’ll teach frameworks, critique approaches, and push them to fail fast. -You’re building a culture of continuous improvement. If you want your organization to learn—not just deliver—a coach helps you get there. They’ll show your PMs how to think, not what to think. -You have collaboration or communication chaos. A coach brings people together. They’ll facilitate better communication, define roles, and institute product best practices so the team can run on its own. -You want to invest in long‐term internal strength. A coach is the best way to future‐proof your talent. You don’t just solve today’s problems; you’re building a product muscle that’ll pay off down the road. Bottom Line: If you’re drowning in strategic decisions and need immediate, decisive action, bring on a Product Lead. If you’re focused on shaping your people into unstoppable product pros, bring in a Product Coach. Honestly, the best teams eventually use both. It’s not about a single hero; it’s about building a product engine that can outlast any pivot or market shift. So, ask yourself: Which do I need more right now? Then don’t wait—get the help that’ll move your product forward and unleash your team’s potential. That’s how enduring products get built. #productmanagement #Leansoftwaredelivery #agile #scrum #product

The Dichotomy Between Software Delivery and Product Leadership There’s a growing divide between the science of delivering software and the role of a product leader. Many assume product leaders can simply “tell teams what to do and they’ll do it”—but anyone who has been in this space knows that’s far from reality. The process of software delivery is intricate, filled with technical complexities and opportunities for improvement, many of which product leaders may overlook entirely. Recently, I had a deep discussion with a development team about their software delivery process, and here’s what we found: ?? Build Processes Were Costing Us Time Inefficiencies in Docker image caching and Gradle caching were dragging down build times, wasting hours every week. Directory-specific builds weren’t being optimized, leading to unnecessary rebuilds and delays. ?? Security Vulnerabilities Slowing Progress We had 750 critical container vulnerabilities identified by security tools (Wiz), and teams were manually updating infrastructure resources in Azure, which slowed both delivery and security improvements. ?? Observability and Monitoring Gaps Our legacy tools like Promtail and OpenTelemetry weren’t giving us the real-time insights we needed to detect and prevent issues early. Logging data wasn’t being used to predict failures, resulting in reactive problem-solving instead of proactive improvements. ?? Kubernetes Upgrade Pain Points Kubernetes upgrades were disruptive and risky due to service dependencies and limited traffic routing. We lacked a robust system to handle soft releases and rollbacks. I’ll admit, I had never thought about how much waste these issues were causing—because they weren’t part of my “product” work. But taking a hard look at these processes uncovered hours of inefficiencies that were hurting our ability to iterate and deliver quickly. As product leaders, it's easy to stay focused on the user experience, roadmaps, and business outcomes. But if we ignore delivery inefficiencies, we lose time, slow feedback loops, and risk falling behind on product improvements. This experience reminded me: process optimization is product optimization. If your development teams are struggling with issues like failing builds, delayed upgrades, or lack of automation, how much time and value are you losing? I’d love to hear your thoughts—have you discovered hidden inefficiencies in your software delivery process? #ProductLeadership #SoftwareDelivery #ContinuousImprovement #ProcessOptimization #FeedbackLoop #LeadershipDevelopment #ProductManagement