A Secret Danger of Agile that Bites
Summary
Agile’s got Feature Goggles
Agile, and the customer research that tends to support it, is very good at highlighting valuable features.? When done well, it’s a wonderful approach to product improvement, but it runs the risk of capturing a company’s attention causing them to miss a market that’s shifted or the opportunity to lead a market change.
The Hondi XYZ200Niner
Let’s play with a simplified example: you are a product manager at Hondi, a cutting edge automobile manufacturer.??
For your product, the Hondi XYZ 200Niner, your team has spent months optimizing the cars radio control - drivers can control it with their minds.? The feeling of the steering wheel now feels like an extension of the driver's hands.? Your fuel economy has improved by 20%.? This year's version was an insane upgrade, but sales are down.?
Why??
Because the car solved last year's problems - this year, people increasingly wanted an electric car.? Your agility did exactly what it was supposed to except, it didn’t stay relevant to customers’ larger wants.??
You improved features, but the market shifted category.? You solved problems at the wrong level and you missed the opportunity to change the market.?
Why is this important
I believe that, when done well, Agile is a powerful tool to discover & implement innovation.?
However, Agile, as I’ve seen it implemented and discussed, runs the risk of fooling a company’s leadership and product teams into believing they are staying relevant.? In fact, at its core, the goal of Agile is to stay relevant - customers are in the room with developers, the product is updated continuously, features are tested.?
You are rapidly building an increasingly relevant product that stays close to your customers’ needs.??
Here’s the problem: you can die from chasing the wrong goal.
By continuously iterating within the bubble of your current solution, your myopia may cause you to miss the opportunity to solve a larger customer problem.
The challenge is that your organization is making progress.? You are adding new customers, satisfaction is increasing, you’re hiring, but without knowing it, you could be slowly losing.
So what can be done?
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A System to Avoid Agile-Myopia
One possible solution is the below three-part model:
Awareness
If you are doing or attempting Agile, your organization runs the risk of dangerous myopia.? So simply being aware of the risk is a good first step.??
Further, if you look at your research and you aren’t continuously accessing your market’s deeper needs, you may be risking myopia.? If you aren’t ideating how to solve new problems, merging multiple customer needs/problems into one product, or pivoting to a new category - you are most likely running the risk of slowly running ashore.??
Systems
If you’ve become aware that you run the risk of chasing the wrong long-term goal and your research isn’t getting you deep, customer insights expanding your research questions is a good next step.
An effective solution might be to merge any customer insight research with your feature research.? For example, you might begin an ethnographic study of your customer, and integrate that into a holistic customer model with your A/B testing.
If instead, your research consists only of A/B features testing you likely will be stuck optimizing features and not asking the larger questions that can turn the boat.??
However, A/B testing is important and can pull double duty, not just validating features, but uncovering deeper customer insights that pave the way for a category shift.? The key nuance is how your customer research is structured and what analysis is done with the data.? If the research is solely focused on feature validation, you have the opportunity to expand the usefulness of your A/B testing.
Ostrich Culture Organization
Feature-focused Agility may not be the problem - it may be a symptom of an Ostrich Culture.? An Ostrich Culture is uncomfortable with a larger pivot.? They believe that if they put their head in the ground and grind out the world’s best solution to a problem, they will be perfectly fine.??
The problem is - that’s never worked over the long-term.
The best horse was replaced by a bad car.? The big car was replaced by the small car.? The gas car is being replaced by the electric car.? The owned car is being replaced by the temporary car…and so on.
As company leaders, we face the daunting challenge of simultaneously building the world's best product and the world's next better idea.????
Organizational cultures that embrace these dual priorities in their systems, values, and hiring have the potential to gain the promise of Agile, without the risks.?
I hope this was interesting & helpful.? As always, I benefit from hearing your opinions so I’d love to hear what you think.