All the product roles and agile scrummy scrums in the world
I’ve read many different interpretations and applications of Agile, product management and Dev/Ops. At their best, these ways of working have helped many organizations become more human-centered, resilient, adaptive, and innovative by getting the most out of the people in the organization to create value for users of their products and services. In turn, these organizations have become more successful, trusted, and profitable.
Because of this success, there is a rush in many sectors for organizations to become more Agile. In this rush to modernize, organizations can lose the core reason these changes to work have been successful. Subsequently, some interpret Agile in familiar ways with a new label.
In a traditional, inside-out organization, we are too easily shielded and distanced from the realities and insights on the front lines. This clouds decision-making, can lead to flawed strategies, and contribute to the descent into obsolescence.
For example: when an employee says their “customer is the [Deputy Minister ADM, Manager],” this is management-centred design. This point of view is indicative of a misaligned, inside-out organization. Therefore, change efforts need to centre the organization around its constituents and shift to an outside-in point-of-view.
Structuring an organization around product teams forces it to adopt an outside-in orientation. That’s the core value. It puts the user at the centre of decisions, processes, and workflows. This reorientation occurs because it’s the products that users interact with. Everything must work back from the touchpoint with the product, so the organization’s behaviour is ultimately aligned to support value creation for the end-user/citizen/human.
It matters much less if people call themselves product yadda yaddas and are up to their eyeballs in agile scrummy scrums. It matters that our mindsets are user-centric, and our workflows, structures, designs, success measures, and incentives reflect that orientation.
