The Evolution of Product Builds

Gone are the days of static product cycles that take siloed teams forever to make progress. With Agile and its derivative methodologies, software teams can develop and deploy in less time, and with more accuracy.

Agile takes consumer insights and feeds the teachings back into the product development roadmap. The benefit of this is continuous improvement and evolution.

The Agile Product Lifecycle

1. Discover: The conceptual stage involves consumer and market research. It typically involves all teams, stakeholders and customers. This stage is critical for deciding whether a proposed product is viable.
2. Develop: Once an idea is validated, engineers start to build the product. This will first be an MVP, which allows for customer feedback to influence the first launch. More on this later.
3. Deploy: The product is released to market.
4. Maintain: The maintenance stage involves continuous iterations, as more feedback is taken into account. Updates and improvements cause little downtime because of the well-planned previous stages.

MVPs: A Critical First Stage

Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) are the most basic version of a product that can be deployed effectively. It has just enough features to be usable, and its purpose is to allow consumers to provide feedback.

MVPs are an important part of product development because they provide valuable learning for developers. It allows teams to avoid fleshing out sophisticated products that won’t perform well in-market.

To build an MVP, your team needs to focus on the essential core features of the product. You can then wireframe, prototype and eventually build the interface. You can test this on a select market that will provide feedback to guide your product development roadmap.

Timeline: The Evolution of Product Builds

1950s-1990s: The Waterfall Era

• 1950s: Software development began.
• 1970s: The Waterfall model emerged. It was characterised by a rigid, phase-based structure that defined each team’s roles and responsibilities.
• 1980s-1990s: Waterfall was adopted by the majority of software companies. Developers appreciated its structure and predictability.

2000s: The Emergence of Agile

• 2001: The Agile Manifesto was created by a group of software developers. Their focus was flexibility, customer collaboration and product responsiveness.
• Early 2000s: Agile methodologies, including Scrum, began to gain popularity over Waterfall.
• 2003: The term "Agile" was coined to encompass these emerging methodologies.

2010s: The Agile Revolution

In the 2010s, Agile’s popularity flourished as developers enjoyed its customer-centricity. Key early features of Agile were incremental development, collaboration and adaptability.

Present: Agile in the Modern Era

• Continuous Evolution: Agile methodologies continue to evolve to meet the unique needs of various industries and organisations.
• Scaled Agile Frameworks: Frameworks like SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) and LeSS (Large Scale Scrum) emerged to help large enterprises adopt Agile at scale.
• Hybrid Approaches: Some organisations adopt hybrid approaches, combining Agile principles with elements of Waterfall or other methodologies.

Coex: Building Your Products Faster

The evolution of product builds reflects the dynamic nature of software development. From the structured and sequential Waterfall era to the customer-centric Agile revolution, the journey is just getting started.

As technology evolves along with customer demands, embracing Agile means taking a proactive approach that empowers organisations to keep their products driven by consumers’ ever-changing needs.

Partnering with Coex makes adopting Agile straightforward. Whether you have a project in mind or want to restructure your way of working, reach out to our consultants to get started.