(2019-01-13) Cutler Going Agile

John Cutler: “Going Agile”. ..sitting next to a CEO of a medium-sized company... What I was immediately struck by was how many pieces were missing in terms of his understanding of modern product development.

I gathered no change in how efforts were funded, their approach to product, or their approach to design

Four things stood out as missing (not just in his understanding, but in the understanding of his engineering leaders):

Teams having a direct connection with the external user/customer

Truly cross-functional teams (including designers, marketing, data science etc. not just developers) owning a product…not an Agile “build” phase in a predominantly waterfall process. Products not projects. Starting together. Working together.

Product management as part of the team…not external to the team passing requirements to a product owner.

The depth of design involvement in problem/solution exploration, and facilitating the team in its approach to design (#2 extended)

he did get some of it! And good parts too…

animosity between “the developers” and what existed in terms of design and product at the company.

Product was considered “old school”

In this CEO’s case, he very much cared about empowering his teams. That showed…he really cared.