Big Tech’s Annual Releases have Stifled Innovation

I read a great article today on how agile processes can spur micromanagement and poorly maintained code by Tim Anderson. Honestly, I don’t disagree with anything in his post. But it dawned on me that the number one benefit that drew me into agility wasn’t even mentioned probably because the few companies who do it are still widely successful from it. Most agilists will argue it’s the cultural benefit that’s most important and the tactical benefit secondary to that. It’s not that I disagree but that’s a personal choice typically based on your skill set. My skills don’t fall in evangelizing agility but they do fall in its tangible benefits. After all, I was an anti-agile developer who became a fan after doing it the right way and seeing not only how much easier my job would be if I embraced it, but how successful I was in having happy customers.?

So what is this benefit you ask? Well, it’s something that can only happen with all four values in mind and a deep understanding of a few agile principles. I won’t spend the time repeating what those are or why this concept can only happen with them in mind. If you get a team to build something so small that it can be built quickly, and used by your end consumers, you have a mechanism for quick feedback, and that same team can welcome changing requirements to incorporate one small change into the product that satisfies the customer through early and continuous delivery, you will build an end product that is not only wildly successful, but it will have a following of consumers who know they are they ones designing the product and it is built for them. And by them, I don’t mean a fictitious group, I mean the dad who didn’t want to wake his children from Tesla alerts and got Joe mode created. He knows who he is. Or myself who sees the screen I want when I open my Tablo app. It’s not called Dustin mode; perhaps many others asked for it. But when it came out shortly after my suggestion, I was happy to think it was built for me.?

Building a minimal viable product isn’t a new concept, but few understand quite how to do it, and what it truly means. Minimal is about the art of maximizing the amount of work not done. And what makes it a viable product is that you can deliver working software. That doesn’t mean you can cut corners, and not have a testing strategy that involves risk acceptance and not risk avoidance. But it does require you to have a team that focuses on technical excellence and good design but that should be the focus of leadership and HR that does not imply or even require micro-management.?

What does this all have to do with Big Tech and Innovation? If I got your attention and you can see the real value agility brings then let’s think about the big cell phone makers as examples. I remember when the smartphone first came out it was the most innovative piece of tech in quite some time. And while Apple had its tradition of these annual events to introduce one new phone a year and Samsung followed that trend, at least by model. In the early days, there were so many companies trying to get into the landscape and compete with Apple that there seemed to be a new smartphone out every month. Now ask yourself, when was there more innovation, during the first few years after the first iPhone release, or the latter 14 years? More memory, more storage, better resolution cameras. For tech, this is business as usual, not innovation. Now I’m not saying or expecting a new cell phone every month, and inside the doors of these giants, I’m sure there are “potentially shippable products” being made. But the point remains, one year later, a new model comes out, how many of those new features make it a success, and how many are never spoken of again?

In contrast, let’s consider Netflix which doesn’t have release events but instead releases hundreds of times a day. Sure none of us know what’s new today but there is a following of consumers who loved the app when it first came out and continue to love the app in a world where tech changes all the time. Netflix has changed more than we know but we don’t know exactly what, just that every time we want something new it just seems to exist. Innovation doesn’t always have to have big announcements and tons of media, but rather it can have massive followings of folks who can’t even pinpoint why they are so faithful to the product.?