Agile vs Waterfall? A perspective on product development

I was traveling with a colleague recently when we started discussing cars. I had just started quipping about a luxury sports car that I would love to drive when my colleague put an abrupt end to our conversation by saying ‘Dhruv, a car is a car is a car’. 

That’s true on so many levels. What’s the point of the big fuss about a vehicle that has but one primary job - to take you from one place to another? On the same lines, one could argue that there’s no need to make a fuss about product development. Just like a car, a consumer product is meant to solve a specific problem for the user. Find a problem or a ‘wide open space’, develop a product for it. And that’s that. Surely, a company that has figured out how to make good products in the past can employ the same methodology to their new product development? 

Let’s get to the reality. A car is not just a car. It’s a personality-defining object. It’s a status symbol. While originally it was invented to do just that, today it doesn’t just serve the purpose of transporting someone or something from one place to another. It provides its user with safety, comfort, entertainment and much more. In today’s market where users are used to an abundance of choices and features, they’re not just looking for products that solve a specific problem, they’re looking for products that make them feel like a better person - more desirable, smarter and more stylish. As a brand grows and gets more recognized, its users' expectations from it have a great role to play in the acceptability of new products.

When it comes to new product development, there are a number of ways to approach the process. Can you refine your own product into something that solves a new set of problems? For instance, a wok with a spatula holder. Should you expand into a category that is complementary to your existing products? Like a food delivery service getting into grocery delivery perhaps. 

Or should you explore something completely new to offer your customers a chance to see you beyond your product segment? 

For us, the first phase of product development is almost always a hard look at your vision and values. Where have you begun? Where have you come? What do you want to be known for? At Autopress, we involve most of our team members in this crucial discussion that has usually been a high level management discussion in other companies. The reason is simple - there’s no chance at progress if the team is not on board. We have also often seen that the most innovative ideas have originated beyond the walls of the conference room - as watercooler conversations, casual banter and hobby projects. 

The deep discussion about our values and vision brings us one step closer to understanding where we fit in well. We then leverage the expertise and talent of our internal team members to bring ideas and opportunities that can be our immediate focus. We ask them, ‘what are the opportunities that are easy to grab and can be growth centers for the organization?’ The answer to that question is our short term product development plan. We also ask the team to imagine the most innovative solutions to the most basic everyday problems. We encourage them to be as creative in their imagination as possible. This becomes a truly exciting place to begin our long term innovation journey.

What begins with conviction and passion, almost always gets us products that set us apart. 

When we began working with the triply material for cookware, almost a decade ago, we were the first ones to even attempt to break the slumberous norm of the cookware industry. Since then, we have been witness to the ripple effect of this move across the country, with many brands now making cookware with triply stainless steel.

An agile method of product development is where there can be a number of product prototypes and the process is not tightly bound into defined steps but instead is more collaborative. It is one where cross departmental knowledge is leveraged while building a product as opposed to before building it. 

The waterfall model is a more structured and linear approach where instead of going back and forth between steps, there is enough time spent in a particular stage to ensure that it is done thoroughly before moving forward. 

Over the years, we have found that shifting to an agile model for product engineering has helped us become more intuitive and iterative in the process. The systems of gathering requirements, providing feedback and making changes become faster and more impactful in the agile method of developing products. Personally, I also think this works better than the waterfall method because it is better suited for smaller teams. 

It also gives your users and customers the feeling that they have been heard, which really helps them buy into what you are doing.

As opposed to the waterfall method, agile engineering has a greater interplay between the design, manufacturing and marketing teams. The product prototype is ready much earlier, making it easier for non-technical stakeholders to feel the product and give valuable feedback. Whereas in a traditional engineering setup, typically the prototype is only ready after a long period and that most likely is the final product that goes to market. 

While the traditional way of product development has helped us get started in our innovation journey, we are slowly moving towards a more interactive and iterative process to help us move swiftly with a smaller team. 

I am hugely excited every time we are discussing new possibilities within the team. The process of product development and innovation acts as a big stimulus to me as an entrepreneur because I see it as a culmination of our dream of elevating the everyday kitchen experience of our customers. 

The two principles we follow while we develop new products are - keep it simple and keep it exciting. The rest becomes a piece of cake.