Analysing Companies Who've Made the Shift to Third-Generation Agile Product Development

The role of IT leaders is to align their efforts with vision and the strategy of the organization, striving to find and implement the right technology solutions that supports them. Most of the time IT Teams procures off the shelf solutions which are ready made products developed by software vendors and can be implemented and used in a short amount of time. Where off the shelf solutions might satisfy general needs and requirements it becomes very difficult to find niche business applications that might be required only for specific organizations. 

This is where IT Usually turns to developing their own technology products from the ground up. A process that historically has been very problematic. Going back to the traditional development process an enterprise might go through; typically, by the time needs are identified, requirements are gathered from various stakeholders, specs are created, coding, testing and launching is complete, the entire process might have taken a couple of years or more and the initial requirements might, the processes and the business landscape might have changed rendering the efforts useless.  This is where the need for MVPs rose. 

What is an MVP

An MVP or a minimum viable product is a basic version of the final product with only the essential bare bones functions. MVPs allow organizations building their own products to only build the core of the product which they can then test in the market (whether internal if the product is employee facing or externally if the product is customer focused) to see whether or not it has the potential to succeed. With the MVP and testing in-place IT teams can collect valuable feedback and insights that would help them further fine-tune the product or in some cases change change the development direction completely. 

image source: SteelKiwi

What are the benefits of building an MVP

Popularized by Eric Reis in his book the Lean Stratup the concept of MVP became very popular with starts and later adopted by Enterprise Organizations due to the following benefits: 

1. Release products to the market (internal/external) quicker
2. Organizations can save time and resources ensuring they only invest in projects that are likely to be successful. 
3. Verify product/market fit ensuring that what they are working on is actually appealing to potential users. 
4. Reduce  time and implementation costs
5. Unlike traditional development approaches building an MVP will allow you to work directly with the end customers, analyze their behaviors and preferences in order to improve the development of your product. 
6. It allows you to evaluate your product’s functionalities. You get information about what works and what does not work.
7. It allows organizations to avoid failures (and investment losses)
8. If they need to decide between multiple products or initiatives to invest in, get accurate and concrete data on where to fully invest their budget and energy. 
9. Identify a potential client based and find the product's early adopters.
10. Save time and money in end product development by not needing to conduct expensive market research.
11. You gain loyalty from your clients. They will value all the effort you are putting forth to make them happy.

How to define an MVP

To build an MVP you should properly define it, some questions you can ask to help you are:

1. Who are your target customers
2. What problems are they facing that you need to solve for them
3. Interview the end customers and try to see what they want vs. what they need
4. List all the features and ideas
5. Categorize all the elements/features and identify the ones that are the most relevant to your end customers
6. Draft the concept
7. Ask your stakeholders directly about their opinion
8. Take the feedback, review your concept and iterate. 

Some common mistakes when it comes to building an MVP

Although the idea and concept of a Minimum Viable Product looks pretty simple, many companies still misunderstand it. Some of the main issues are:

1. Cutting on key product features: when we talk about an elementary set of features, it does not mean that we can deliver an unfinished product or one that lacks functionality that would be expected or needed
2. Adding necessary features: You need to focus on the core value of the product, things that contribute to the success of it, instead of wasting time and resources on options that no one would ever use

Final Words

As we talked the Minimum Viable Product allows you to gain valuable insight about your idea from users with very little efforts allowing you to maximize your budget as a result. Any organization with a considerable push to developing their own products should consider having an MVP because it gives them the opportunity to test the product with actual users in the real market and obtain the necessary early feedback that makes the different between success and failure. 

Interested in starting your own product development efforts but are lacking the required resources? Sprintat is an offering where we provide you with a complete Agile Development team alongside the tools, processes and quality controls required to help you build, maintain and continuously optimize your software products/solutions. Sprintat helps you build applications your users will love using.

IT managers are playing a bigger role than ever before in how a business is run and its ultimate success. One of the questions many IT managers have found themselves asking is whether they want to be a part of a business that focuses on agile product development or one that favours a traditional project management plan.

The Difference Between Agile Product Development and Traditional Project Management

Traditional project management is how most businesses handled product development and line improvement. The traditional style involves putting together a long, detailed timeline for each project and getting every single aspect of the product perfect before the official product launch. 

Agile product development is the opposite end of the spectrum. When a business decides to use agile development to create a new product, they create multiple cross-functional product squads who each work on a specific aspect of the product. Key components of agile product development include:

• Teamwork
• Communication
• Customer collaboration
• Updates
• Speed

While the concept of agile product development has been around for a long time, it didn't become a popular business tool until the turn of the century.

Traditional project management is the process most companies use when they decide it's time to develop a new product. The process follows a well-established process that goes from idea, to developing a prototype, to conducting consumer tests, to debugging the product, to releasing a fully developed product on the market. Businesses that use a traditional project management system never deviate from the formula. The tight timeline also makes it difficult to innovate the product mid-development to accommodate an unanticipated need.

How Traditional Project Management Works

History shows that the traditional model of project management was developed in the 1970s. Businesses quickly fell in love with it. The way the system works is:

• The business conducts a business analysis and determines if there is a demand for the product
• The business designs the product
• The business puts the design through a series of development processes
• Once happy that they've gotten the design perfect, the business tests the design
• The business launches the design

Once the design has launched, the business rarely does anything to upgrade or improve the product. 

The rigid and lengthy timeline traditional project management results in many promising products being discarded because they're taking way to long to develop.

How Agile Product Development works

Many believe that agile product development predates traditional project management by several centuries. They argue that if Sir Francis Bacon laid the groundwork for agile product development back in the 1620s when he created his scientific formula. While there are examples of agile development scattered throughout history, the Agile Manifesto wasn't created until 2001. Many businesses, including Toyota and PayPal, have adopted an agile product development strategy and have been very happy with the results.

Businesses that favour agile product development divide their talent into product project squads and break the total project into chunks. Each of the teams works in quick sprints to swiftly handle whichever part of the development process they've been assigned. Using this system, it doesn't take long for the product to launch. After the launch, data and customer feedback is collected. Once the teams have enough customer feedback, they tweak the product, making it extremely user-friendly.

Benefits of Agile Product Development

While there are always going to be risks connected to product development, agile product development goes a long way towards mitigating those risks. A good agile product development system not only drastically shortens the amount of time it takes to launch the product, but since customer feedback leads to constantly improving the product so that it's perfectly suited for your target market's needs and desires. The result is a high degree of customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to customer loyalty. 

Benefits of agile product development include: 

• Early and Predictable Delivery
• Lower cost 
• Predictable timeline
• It's a development process that allows for change and flexibility
• Better consumer acceptance
• A more desirable product
• Outstanding ROI
• Happier employees

Benefits of Traditional Project Management

When it comes to software and app development, the biggest benefit of traditional project management is that the product is more polished on the launch date than products developed via an agile process. There aren't any plans to tweak the product to make it more appealing to customers, or more efficient.

Stakeholders like traditional project management. They appreciate getting a piece of paper that has the projected timeline, cost control measures, and assures them that once the product is released, it won't ever need to be changed.

Additional advantages connected to traditional product management include:

• The ability to schedule mass production
• The knowledge that all the bugs have been worked out of the product prior to its release date
• Product designers can turn their complete attention to the next project and not have to think about the one they just completed ever again

How Agile Product Development and Traditional Project Management Compare to One Another

While there are some industries that should focus on traditional project management, others, including software and app development businesses, should seriously consider converting to agile product development. Most businesses report that when they switched to agile product development, they developed products 37% faster than they had before and noticed a 16% increase in productivity. The same companies also reported a significant increase in annual revenue.

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Sprintat's people are agile product development masters. We have extensive experience helping clients just like you develop both software programs and apps. Schedule a meeting today and learn how we can help you take your high-quality idea and turn into a lucrative product. We have a Sprintat team standing by who is ready and willing to provide you with the design advice and tools needed to make the concept of your design a reality.

Contact us to learn more! We promise we'll never hit you with any false estimates, eagerly collaborate with both you and your employees, and will help you create the best possible product. 

It would be nice if business growth happened organically, but in most cases, any organic growth business experience happens slowly, which is why business owners like yourself should consider the different ways the can stimulate business growth in 2019.

Don't Have a Value Proposition? It's Time to do it!

Your business's value proposition is a written statement that outlines what sets your business apart from your direct competitors and why customers should purchase from you. Even though the value proposition is a key component in a business's brand image and marketing strategy, a surprising number of businesses never create a value proposition. The failure to have one can make it difficult for the business to experience future growth.

What to Include in the Value Proposition?

The information you to include in your value proposition is:

• The quantified value of the benefits consumers receives from your business
• The relevancy of your product/service to consumers
• An explanation of the unique ways your business differs from the competition

Keep redrafting your value proposition until it is a fluid read at which point, post it on your website's homepage as well as the landing pages for all your sale funnels.

Take Advantage of Your Talented Employees

Your employees are more than just people who complete the business-related tasks you assign them. They're the face of your company and just as important as your brand image. If utilized properly, they can also be the key to your 2019 business growth. 

Take a long look at your employees. Read through their resumes. Ask them what aspects of the business interest them. You may find that a large portion of your team has skills and talents you can utilize to make your business run more smoothly than ever before. 

Use what you've learned and apply it when you're hiring. You want to invest in talent. Don't just look for somebody who meets your current needs, but someone who has the skills you'll need once your business grows.

Have you Been Considering Developing Products? Now's a Great Time to Start!

Has your business experienced steady product growth over the past few years or has your business hit a plateau? If you've plateaued one launching a new product is something you can do to trigger a new surge of business growth. While there is some risk connected to developing and launching a new product, there are also some great rewards, which include:

• Increased revenue
• New marketing options
• Opportunities to establish yourself as an industry leader
• Network building
• Increased market share

When it comes to taking your business and shifting it to a more product-based development, you'll want to memorize the seven-stages of product development.

1. Idea generation 
2. Developing an idea into a solid product concept
3. Developing the product
4. Market testing
5. Commercialization
6. Launching the product
7. Post-launch analysis and marketing

 You can choose to handle every single aspect of new product development in-house, or you can decide to outsource some parts.

If you feel that developing a completely new product is too risky, you may want to opt for redesigning and branding one of your current products that haven't been garnering many sales. A good product redesign can trigger as much business growth as developing a new product.

Stop Ignoring your Facebook Business Page

Yes, Facebook does have issues. Yes, the number of people your posts reach through organic means is limited. Still, you shouldn't ignore your business's Facebook page. When push comes to shove, with more than 2.23 billion monthly active users, Facebook still has the most active users per month than any other social media platform. You can't afford to not use your Facebook business account to promote your brand and products/services.

Happily, there are things you can do to get the most out of your Facebook business page. 

Resist the Urge to Make All Your Facebook Posts Promotional

Instead of posting nothing but promotional content, post things behind the scenes glimpses of your business, bits of trivia, and educational content. These are the posts that are likely to generate engagements and shares. Keep the number of promotional posts to 20% or less.

Get Serious About Facebook Advertisements

Create engaging ads that promote either your product or business and run them on Facebook. Measure your ads every 24 hours and tweak them for optimal performance. Set aside a minimum of $100 for your Facebook advertising campaign.

Webinars are Awesome Marketing Tools

Webinars are a great way to generate interactions with your page. Educational webinars hardly cost anything to put together and run, and Facebook users love them, making them a brilliant form of advertisement with a high ROI. A Q&A style webinar which is fun for both you and your audience.

Take Advantage of Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights does an excellent job of compiling data that helps you get the most out of your business page. Paying attention to the data allows you to target both your posts and advertising efforts to the most responsive audience. When utilized correctly, you'll find that both your organic and paid posts generate higher engagements, which in turn, results in Facebook driving more traffic to your website.

The type of data Facebook Insights provides business owners includes:

• Who has engaged with recent posts
• Audience behaviour, including buying patterns
• Who reacted to posts about live events you've hosted
• Traffic sources
• How videos and paid posts performed

While you're working to improve your business's Facebook page, you should also look at how you can boost your marketing efforts on other social media platforms.

Host Live Events

Live events are a great way to promote your company and also lay the foundation for business growth. Your loyal customers will love an opportunity to get to know you better, and thanks to live streaming, you can even promote the event on your favourite social media accounts. 

Good reasons to have a live event include:

• Fundraisers
• Product launches
• Customer appreciation events
• Trade show participation
• Community events
• Business milestones

What steps do you plan to take in 2019 to help your business grow?

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When you schedule a meeting, you'll quickly discover how much we care about your business growth. Contact us and learn how we intend to use our resources to make 2019 your most profitable year!