A Product on the other hand is something that lives for an indefinite period of time, is hopefully seen as an asset to the organisation, and is something that should evolve and improve over time, addressing the needs of real users.
Too many organisations are still focusing their efforts on delivering software platforms with a Project rather than a Product mindset. We observe that this harms organisations in a number of ways:
We favour instead looking to adopt an MVP* approach, where the smallest increment is delivered to real users as soon as possible, so that their feedback can help to shape the most valuable direction for future investment.
The investment strategy for a product would usually look different to that of a project. Typically projects look to maximise their budget at the start, and would expect to run the budget dry by the time the first release is out.
*A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is: "the version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort."
Encouraging teams to think of success in terms of "on time, on budget" delivery removes the focus of a meaningful commercial goal, such as how useful the product being delivered actually is to customers.
We see much greater success where teams are more closely aligned with delivering against the commercial objectives of the product launch.
Nobody owns the direction of the product
There are distinct differences between the roles of Product Owners and Project Managers - though we often see the latter assume the surrogate role of PO during a more typical project engagement.
Empowering a stakeholder in your organisation to take ownership of a product, set its direction, and assume overall responsibility for its commercial effectiveness is a great motivator.
It's not true that the cost of change in software systems needs to increase over time. With a mature team having ownership of a product, a sensible approach to evolving and improving a system can be attained.
is a challenge for most software products.
By making use of appropriate software architectures, a software platform can improve and evolve over time, replacing smaller components as they reach end of life, but avoiding the baby with the bathwater scenario of throwing everything away and starting from a blank sheet.
This approach also rings true for bringing new products to market. We don't believe investment strategies that encourage a big team upfront which is scaled down to a smaller skeleton maintenance crew is generally the best route to market. Delivery strategies like this too often burn their investment without getting anything in to the hands of end users; lacking a true feedback loop that can be acted on.
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Our mission is to improve software delivery in every organisation. We work with our customers to deliver modern applications and help them move to a faster, leaner, and more agile software delivery model.
