Value Creation & Delivery - There are NO Guarantees.

Can you promise value delivery 100% of the time?

What are the consequences if you are unable to deliver value?

Value creation and delivery is an uncertain and complex undertaking, as it involves a wide range of activities and responsibilities and there are no guarantees of success. However, by following best practices in Software Engineering, DevOps, Agile, Product Management, & Design Thinking, you can increase the probability of success and deliver value to your customers.

• Software engineering is a discipline that focuses on the design, development, and maintenance of software systems. To ensure the quality, reliability, efficiency & security of the product, software engineers use a variety of practices and techniques like Architecture design - SOA or microservices, Test Driven Development (TDD), Unit Testing, Integration Testing, Acceptance testing, Performance testing, Penetration testing etc.

• DevOps is an approach that emphasizes the collaboration and communication between development and operations teams in order to deliver products more quickly and reliably. It involves the integration & automation of development, testing, and deployment processes, and aims to increase the speed and efficiency of delivery. DevOps practices include Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, Release on Demand and Infrastructure As Code, which help to automate and streamline the product development process. It also involves a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement, which encourages teams to work together and share knowledge in order to deliver high-quality products and services. By adopting DevOps practices, organizations can improve their ability to deliver products and services to customers more quickly and reliably, and increase the agility and responsiveness of their development and operations teams.

• Agile is a set of principles and values that guide the development and delivery of products. Agile practices, such as Scrum, Lean, & Kanban, emphasize flexibility, collaboration, and relentless continuous improvement. While Agile Mindset is a way of thinking, that values flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement. It is characterized by a focus on delivering value to customers as quickly as possible, and a willingness to adapt and respond to changing customer and market needs.

• Product management involves defining, building, and delivering a product to a target market, and it involves a number of practices and responsibilities that are focused on meeting the needs and expectations of customers. Product management practices include defining the product vision, ruthlessly prioritizing product requirements, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and analyzing and optimizing product performance. These practices help product managers to understand the needs and preferences of the target market, and to build and deliver products that meet these needs and provide value to customers. Product management and project management are related, but distinct, disciplines. By adopting a product mindset, companies and teams can better understand the needs of their customers and deliver value through their products. While project mindset is focused on planning, organizing, and managing the time, cost and budget to execute a series of activities needed to complete a project.

• Design Thinking is a problem-solving approach that is used to generate creative and innovative solutions to complex challenges. It involves a systematic and iterative process of defining a problem, researching and gathering information, generating ideas, prototyping and testing, and refining. The key principles of design thinking include empathy for the user, a focus on creating value, and a willingness to iterate and experiment. It emphasizes a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach, and encourages designers to involve users and stakeholders in the design process.

It is important to consider all of these areas when working on a product, as each one plays a critical role in the overall success of the product. If any one of these areas is neglected or not given the appropriate attention, it can increase the risk of failure.

For example, if the software engineering practices are not followed properly, the resulting product may be prone to bugs and technical issues, which can negatively impact the user experience and ultimately lead to customer dissatisfaction. Similarly, if you only focus on software engineering and ignore the needs and goals of your users, you may build a technically impressive product that does not meet the needs of your users and therefore does not provide value to them.

Now, Coming back to my questions -

Can you promise value delivery 100% of the time?

My take is, It is not possible to delivery value 100% of the time, as there are many factors that can impact the success of a product. While it is important to strive for excellence and aim to deliver value to customers as consistently as possible, there may be situations where this is not possible.

What are the consequences if you are unable to deliver value?

If a product is unable to deliver value to customers, the consequences can vary depending on the specific circumstances. Some potential consequences may include customer dissatisfaction, decreased trust in the company, financial losses, or damage to the company's reputation. In order to minimize the risk of these consequences, it is important to carefully plan and execute products, follow best practices in Software Engineering, DevOps, Agile, Product Management, and Design Thinking, and be proactive in addressing any issues that may arise.

By embracing these best practices, organizations and teams can increase the probability of success and deliver value to their customers, majority of the time.