How can product management leverage market rhythms
How can product management leverage market rhythms
How can Product Management leverage market rhythms?
Answers of Question How can Product Management leverage market rhythms? is Adjust the delivery of Features to better meet market needs, asked in PO PM Certification Exam.
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How can Product Management leverage market rhythms?
Adjust the delivery of Features to better meet market needs
Adjust the timing of marketing campaigns
Improve the prioritization of Features
Improve the scheduling of Program Increment Planning
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Answer of How can Product Management leverage market rhythms?
Adjust the delivery of Features to better meet market needs
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Come può Product Management ritmi del mercato di leva?
كيف يمكن إدارة المنتجات إيقاعات السوق النفوذ؟
Comment la gestion des produits rythmes du marché de levier?
どのようにプロダクトマネジメントレバレッジ市場のリズム？
¿Cómo pueden los ritmos de mercado apalancamiento de gestión de productos?
Wie können Produktmanagement Hebel Markt Rhythmen?
Как можно Управление продуктов ритмы левереджа на рынке?
如何能产品管理利用市场的节奏？
Como pode Gerenciamento de Produtos ritmos mercado alavancagem?
People Also Searched For: PO PM Certification Answers, PO PM Certification questions, PO PM Certification exam, PO PM Certification exam answers, PO PM Certification quiz answers, Free PO PM Certification.
Product Management
Product management is an organizational job that oversees every aspect of a product’s life cycle, from development to positioning and pricing, by putting the product and its users first. The term “product management” comes from a document written by Procter & Gamble President Neil H. McElroy in 1931. After seeking additional personnel dedicated to brand management, McElroy wanted “Brand Men” to handle products, packaging, positioning, distribution, and sales performance.
Product managers advocate for customers within the organization and ensure that the market’s voice is heard and heeded to develop the greatest possible product. The function of product management is one of strategic importance. It covers a wide range of long-term strategic tasks. Product management is a lucrative and fulfilling profession. Depending on experience, various product management roles and duties are necessary.
Free Product Management Practice Test Online
A product manager oversees the strategy, roadmap, and feature definition for a product or line of products. Job responsibilities may include product marketing, forecasting, and profit and loss (P&L). Being a product manager is, unsurprisingly, the perfect product management job. A product manager is typically responsible for one or more products and a horizontal function that spans numerous products, such as “user experience” or “e-commerce.” Product management is becoming more popular as a career. There is a growing demand for qualified product managers at all levels. You can expect a difficult interview procedure if you want to start a career in product management.
Blockchain Product Management
A blockchain product manager is in charge of a company’s blockchain-based product development. It is known as product management in reality. Working with blockchain technology adds to the job’s complexity, but it also offers a lot of extremely funny moments. Essentially, product managers are capable of developing a product strategy and overseeing the launch of that product from beginning to end. Job duties for a blockchain product manager include ensuring that the product satisfies the user’s needs, studying the market for important inputs, etc. It will first concentrate on consumer analysis and resource management. Later sections will focus on putting the product through its paces and properly launching it.
Product Management for Non Technical
Non-technical product managers focus on non-technical aspects such as marketing, finance, consulting, and sales. While every product manager must have some technical proficiency to be effective, non-technical product managers focus on non-technical aspects such as marketing, finance, consulting, and sales. Because a product manager sits at the crossroads of business and technology, a non-technical manager can oversee the product’s business and commercial aspects. The non-technical product manager should understand a few technical ideas. An understanding of certain technical topics is required in the toolkit of the non-technical product manager. The following are the most important non-technical product management abilities:
Remote Product Management Internships
Internships in product management are ideal for individuals who want to be at the heart of an organization’s strategy and development. Aspiring product managers spend time working at leading firms worldwide, honing the skills needed to lead cross-functional teams to success. A product management internship provides a unique opportunity to learn about the procedures and skills needed to bring a product to market. These immersion assignments give students hands-on exposure to crucial industry parts and the chance to work in marketing, sales, engineering, and customer service. Internships in remote product management provide a unique opportunity for getting professional expertise and establishing a career.
Why do you want to do Product Management?
The job of a product manager is to help people solve challenges. Product management could be the appropriate profession for you if your life has driven you to think creatively, solve problems, and be interested. You’d be a wonderful fit for a role where you can practice, learn, and grow. Here are the benefits of working as a product manager that you should know if you want to pursue this career path.
Robust Product Knowledge
Minimizes Risk of Product Failure
Power of Strengthening Collaboration Between Internal Teams
Help in Aligning Market Needs
Product Content Management
Product content management is merchandising. It’s a combination of content planning, retail merchandising, and digital marketing, all bundled into one. The PCM system is used to generate, categorize, organize, disseminate, and program all types of product information. A PCM is an excellent tool for managing your company’s merchandise, as it allows you to track and change sales-related online material. Product Content Management is the younger sibling of Product Information Management (PIM). PIM is a mature system that organizes and maintains all of the information needed to market and sell products across many channels and markets.
B2B Product Management
Business-to-business is abbreviated as B2B. It is a transaction between two companies. It means that a company sells its items to another company. B2B product management entails overseeing B2B products and hiring specialist B2B product managers. Product managers in this sort of product management work on goods aimed at business or commercial users. As a B2B Product Manager, knowing where to draw the line between the feedback and expectations of whom you’re selling to, and your end-users is critical to your success. Companies develop longer ties with their customers in B2B. Instead of keeping software to yourself, you give it to a client.
Product Development VS Management
Product development works under the supervision of product management to create the final product. Individuals with backgrounds in software development, design, or engineering usually make up this team. It is the procedure for bringing a notion to market. The product development team takes the product manager’s requirements and turns them into a working product that complies with the company’s quality standards. Scalability is always on the minds of great product development teams. Even if they’re constructing for the present, the foundations and framework must be in place to meet tomorrow’s needs as efficiently as feasible.
The fundamental responsibility of product management is to create a product that customers will buy and promote. They are in charge of driving market requirements. Thus they must be skilled at bringing together feedback from customers, support, prospects, and sales and weighing it against what the competition is doing. It’s a strategic position encompassing the full product life cycle, from planning to manufacturing to marketing. Product managers assist in developing a company’s vision, ensuring that each product delivered fits the demands and desires of the client. They conduct market and customer research, convert consumer needs into requirements, and ensure that the final product meets those criteria.
Product Management Recruiting Timeline
There seems to be no clear explanation of how long it takes to get your first product manager position. It is determined by many aspects, like your work experience, education, and interview preparation, to name a few. One of a product leader’s most important responsibilities is to choose the right PM because it might have long-term ramifications for the team’s strength and skills. After getting an undergraduate degree, the simple answer to “how long does it take to get your first PM position” is three to five years. That isn’t set in stone. Without a college diploma, some people find a way to work as product managers. Some people are fortunate enough to get a job right out of college. The PM interview process might take one to three months to complete. The interview process may be shorter if you apply to a smaller company or a startup. They don’t have as many applications or as high of a hurdle for PM positions.
Product Management 101
Experience in product management is advantageous, but it is not required. Product Management 101 aims to help you become a more strategic product manager with a bigger impact on your company and products. This course is for aspiring product and product managers with 0-5 years of experience who want to upgrade their work. The training is designed for aspiring product managers and business executives who want to learn how product teams work. This course teaches you how to use market intelligence, strategy, new product creation, and lifecycle management to be leaner, faster, and more experimental in your product management profession.
A/B Testing Product Management
A/B testing is all about splitting your audience/user base into two groups is what A/B testing is all about. If your user base is relatively tiny, you can achieve this by doing a 50/50 split test or taking a sample size from a bigger user population. A product manager will review the data acquired after a set amount of time (which can vary depending on the test/product/goal, etc.) to understand better which version should be given out to the full user base. This test is the simplest testing method, but multivariate testing is also an option. The goal of doing a test is to determine the best way to improve your product. A/B testing is frequently used in product management to discover the best-performing option. Marketing and advertising professionals typically utilize this method to present numerous versions of an ad, marketing email, or web page to selected users and then analyze the outcomes randomly.
Mastering Product Management
Mastering product management will teach you how to identify strategic product work while gaining internal alignment, how to create and secure resources for an ambitious vision, how to develop needle-moving roadmaps and high-leverage product specs consistently, and how to truly empower your team to get maximum leverage when building a winning product. You’ll discover a step-by-step method to improve your product strategy knowledge and identify needle-moving activities. It covers the complete product life cycle, from conception to disposal. You’ll also learn how to develop product requirements that eliminate your role as a bottleneck and release your team’s creative potential.
Product Management Coach
As coaching grows more common among product managers, a clearer picture emerges of what a product coach entails. A product coach is an experienced product expert who assists product managers and leaders in overcoming obstacles and achieving their objectives at work. In a helpful and inspiring role, a Product Coach can be an excellent complement to a current Product Team. Product coaches assist teams and individuals in overcoming roadblocks, learning best practices, and challenging the status quo in the product development process. Even though the title includes the word “coach,” a product coach does much more than that. A competent product coach employs the following techniques and can move between them depending on the client’s needs.
Product Management Guide PDF
To become a Product Manager, you must first grasp how Product Managers function. Product management is one of the most profitable occupations in technology. If you are researching product management and looking for study materials such as product management books PDF, product management basics PDF, product management case study PDF, and product management for dummies PDF, you have come to the right place. We advise you to take the product management exam. This online test will provide you with more information about product management. Product management roles entail reaching technical goals through encouraging collaboration, which means that the success of a product is intrinsically related to how smoothly its development team performs.
How Can Product Management Leverage Market Rhythms
In this post, we describe How Can Product Management Leverage Market Rhythms and market forces to drive product strategy In the early stages of product innovation, it can be helpful for product managers to keep an eye on market rhythms and market forces.
By understanding how these two factors can impact product strategy, product managers can optimize their product development process.
Market rhythms are referring to the turning of certain events or patterns that occur in a predictable way.
The article talks about how product management needs to leverage market rhythms during their strategy development and execution.
Table of Contents
1. What Are Market Rhythms?
Product management can use market rhythms to their advantage.
By understanding how to market rhythms work, product managers can create products that are in demand and meet customer needs.
How Can Product Management Leverage Market Rhythms: istockphoto
Market rhythms are the natural ebbs and flows of demand for goods and services. They vary depending on a variety of factors such as economic conditions, consumer preferences, and cultural trends.
⦿ Product managers can use market rhythms to their advantage by understanding when demand is high and when it is low.
By understanding market rhythms, product managers can create products that are in demand and meet customer needs.
Market Rhythm: What is it?
Market Rhythm is a method of marketing that enables you to sell more products and services without having to spend time selling.
You can use Market Rhythm to create a repeatable system for selling that generates consistent sales revenue every month.
The main idea behind Market Rhythm is to maximize your sales by understanding the market and using it to your advantage. This is because it is the only way to get customers to buy from you again and again.
It is a simple, three-step process that you can follow to create a repeatable system that generates consistent sales revenue every month.
Step 1: Identify your customer base.
Step 2: Develop your product.
Step 3: Create a plan for your sales.
Follow the steps and you will have a repeatable system that generates consistent sales revenue every month.
2. Understanding How Rhythms Work
Product management is tasked with creating and managing products that users will want to buy. One way to think about this is to think about products as tools that users use to achieve certain goals.
A product’s success or failure depends on how well it meets users’ needs and expectations.
Product management relies on feedback from customers and market analysts to make informed decisions about what products to create and how best to market them.
They also know when it’s time to discontinue a product or when they need to introduce a new one into the market. By understanding how rhythms work, product managers can ensure that their products are successful.
3. How To Leverage Core Competencies?
The core competency approach can help you see where your strengths lie and what’s important to you in your role, so you know what skills you should focus on developing.
It also helps you understand how people view you from the outside, which can give insight into how others perceive your weaknesses and opportunities.
It can prove helpful if you don’t always know what your next step will be and want to learn something specific. If that’s not you, then just use the tool by browsing through all the listings.
4. What Are The Different Market Rhythms?
We discuss the different market rhythms and how they affect the performance of your business. There are a number of market rhythms that can affect the performance of a business.
⦿ Some of these include the business cycle, the stock market, and the market forces of supply and demand.
The business cycle is a recurring pattern of economic activity that typically lasts for about nine years. The stock market is a collection of stocks, commodities, and other financial instruments traded on a stock exchange.
The market forces of supply and demand are the basic economic forces that determine the price of a good or service.
5. How do they affect the product manager?
| ① | The Product Manager is a critical role in any business. They are responsible for the successful launch of a product or service and ensuring its growth. The Product Manager is responsible for the successful launch of a product or service and ensuring its growth. |
| ② | They are responsible for understanding customer needs, developing a product roadmap, and ensuring that the product meets customer expectations. Product managers are responsible for the growth and success of a product or service. |
| ③ | They must understand customer needs and develop a product roadmap that meets customer expectations. |
| ④ | Product managers are responsible for the growth and success of a product or service. They must understand customer needs and develop a product roadmap that meets customer expectations. |
| ⑤ | Product managers must also keep up with new technology and trends in their industry in order to ensure that their products are up to date and competitive. |
6. How Can Product Management Capitalize On Rhythms?
Product management is a critical function in any organization, but it can be even more important during market cycles. Rhythm is an important aspect of markets, and by understanding how it works, product managers can better manage their products and businesses.
Market cycles are regular patterns that can be identified by analyzing historical data.
⦿ There are four major market cycles: the growth cycle, the maturation cycle, the recessionary cycle, and the expansionary cycle.
There’s no one way to understand market rhythms, but understanding how people behave over time is a valuable skill for any product manager. By learning about the different market
7. How Do We Know The Market Rhythm is Changing?
The market has changed and we need to adapt. The market rhythm is a new term that describes how the markets change over time.
It’s a concept that was created by our friends at Market Rhythm.
⦿ They are a company that helps companies understand and leverage the market rhythm.
Once the market enters a decline or contraction phase, it’s time for new products to be replaced with others that are more profitable. As the market enters the next phase, it will start another cycle of growth or decline.
8. How Can Product Managers Leverage Market Rhythms?
Product managers have a lot of work to do and many things to take care of. They are in charge of the whole operation, but they must know when to be more focused on one aspect of their product and when to focus on another.
In order to be successful as a product manager, you must be able to balance a lot of different priorities. You must be able to focus on the tasks at hand, but also keep an eye on the long-term goals of the product.
For example, if the goal is to make money, then the product may need to be modified to achieve that goal.
9. How Can Product Managers Use The Market Rhythm To Make Decisions?
Product managers are responsible for making sure their products and services are in line with the market trends.
This article will help you understand how product managers can use market rhythm to make decisions.
Understanding market rhythm can help product managers predict future market trends.
A market rhythm is a repeating pattern of market activity that can be used to make predictions about future market trends.
By understanding market rhythm, product managers can make more informed decisions about the products they produce.
⦿ There are a few different types of market rhythms that can be used to predict future market trends.
10. How Can Product Managers Use The Market Rhythm To Improve Their Products?
Product managers are responsible for developing new products, so it’s important to understand how they work and what factors influence their success.
There are a few things that a product manager must do in order to succeed. First, they must have a clear understanding of their product’s needs and market.
They must also be able to create a detailed plan and strategy for their product. “
The manager must have a clear understanding of the needs and wants of their product’s market. They must also be able to create a detailed plan and strategy for their product.
The manager must have a clear understanding of their product’s needs and wants in order to create a detailed plan and strategy. Additionally, they must be able to communicate this information to their team effectively.
Product management benefits of identifying rhythms
Product management can benefit from identifying market rhythms. By understanding how the market operates, product managers can make better decisions about when to release products and how to price them.
① Seasonal: Markets operate in a predictable way based on the calendar year. Products that are most in demand during the summer months tend to be less in demand during the winter months. For example, iPhones are popular during the summer but not so much during the winter.
② Secular: Markets ebb and flow but are generally driven by technology advancements and consumer needs.
For example, after people upgrade their phones every two years, there is a lull in phone purchases for two years.
But when people start buying mid-range phones instead of high-end phones, this secular trend begins again.
③ Technological: Markets are driven by new technology arrivals, which can affect all kinds of products.
For example, when Apple released the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, it disrupted the industry because they were the first phone with a glass back and curved edges.
This technological: Trend has since been followed by other companies and affects all types of products.
④ Lifestyle: Markets are driven by social trends, which can influence all kinds of products and services. For example, when people started embracing the minimalist lifestyle in the early 2000s, it affected all types of products (just look at how many companies are now claiming to be minimalist).
Even if somebody comes up with a product that is not considered minimalist by today’s standards (like a smartphone), it will still likely be influenced by this historical trend.
As for retail markets, I would say these are driven by economic cycles and government policies.
While there are a few exceptions here, such as luxury goods and travel agents, most retailers (like grocery stores) typically follow GDP growth cycles.
For example, when GDP growth goes down or stays stagnant for a while, consumers often shift their spending to areas where they can still get cheaper goods (like clothing, food, and entertainment) so that the economy doesn’t suffer.
11. From understanding rhythms to making real changes in your brand
Understanding market rhythms is essential to being a successful product manager. Here are four key market rhythms you should be aware of:
1. The Rhythm of Growth: This is the natural ebb and flow of businesses and consumer demand.
2. The Rhythm of Stagnation:
3. The Rhythm of Ddecline:
12. How can product managers leverage market rhythms to drive growth?
Product managers have a lot of responsibility, but they are often the least visible member of the management team.
They have to manage the development of new products, keep track of customer demands, and feedback and make sure that the company is making good decisions.
Product managers are responsible for the overall success of a product.
They must manage a team of developers, customers, and other stakeholders to ensure that the product meets customer expectations and is profitable.
A product manager is responsible for the success of a product, managing a team of developers, customers, and other stakeholders. They must ensure that the product meets customer benefits expectations and is profitable.
“A product manager is responsible for developing a product that meets customer expectations and is profitable.
They must work with a team of developers, customers, and other stakeholders to ensure the product is successful.
13. FAQ
How can product management leverage market rhythms
we describe how product managers can leverage market rhythms and market forces to drive product strategy In the early stages of product innovation, it can be helpful for product managers to keep an eye on market rhythms and market forces.
By understanding how these two factors can impact product strategy, product managers can optimize their product development process.
What are market rhythms?
Product management can use market rhythms to their advantage. By understanding how to market rhythms work, product managers can create products that are in demand and meet customer needs.
Market rhythms are the natural ebbs and flows of demand for goods and services. They vary depending on a variety of factors such as economic conditions, consumer preferences, and cultural trends.
Product managers can use market rhythms to their advantage by understanding when demand is high and when it is low.
When demand is high, product managers can produce more products to meet the
How to Leverage Core Competencies?
The core competency approach can help you see where your strengths lie and what’s important to you in your role, so you know what skills you should focus on developing. It also helps you understand how people view you from the outside, which can give insight into how others perceive your weaknesses and opportunities.
It can prove helpful if you don’t always know what your next step will be and want to learn something specific. If that’s not you, then just use the tool by browsing through all the listings.
How can product managers leverage market rhythms?
Product managers have a lot of work to do and many things to take care of. They are in charge of the whole operation, but they must know when to be more focused on one aspect of their product and when to focus on another.
In order to be successful as a product manager, you must be able to balance a lot of different priorities. You must be able to focus on the tasks at hand, but also keep an eye on the long-term goals of the product.
How can product managers leverage market rhythms to drive growth?
Product managers have a lot of responsibility, but they are often the least visible member of the management team. They have to manage the development of new products, keep track of customer demands, and feedback and make sure that the company is making good decisions.
Product managers are responsible for the overall success of a product. They must manage a team of developers, customers, and other stakeholders to ensure that the product meets customer expectations and is profitable.
Roadmap
Roadmaps are the glue that link strategy to tactics. They provide all stakeholders with a view of the current, near-term, and longer-term deliverables that realize some portion of the Portfolio Vision and Strategic Themes. SAFe defines three types of roadmaps: A near-term PI roadmap, a longer-term solution roadmap, and a portfolio roadmap. A PI roadmap includes near-term commitments for an Agile Release Train (ART) or Solution Train for the planned, upcoming Program Increment (PI) and offers a forecast into the deliverables and Milestones for the next two to three PIs. The solution roadmap provides a longer-term—often multiyear—view showing the key milestones and deliverables needed to achieve the solution Vision over time. The portfolio roadmap shows an aggregated multi-year view of how the portfolio vision will be achieved across all the portfolio’s Value Streams.
In addition to these three roadmaps, other planning elements include daily plans, Iteration plans, and PI plans.
Details
“Responding to change over following a plan” is one of the four values of the Agile Manifesto [1]. While this value emphasizes responding to change, it also states there must be a plan. While predicting the future has inherent risks, building significant business solutions requires a roadmap for many reasons:
Ultimately, roadmaps strengthen the relationship between the organization and its customers and suppliers by providing them with a means to understand, collaboratively shape, and plan for future solutions.
Market Rhythms and Market Events
Understanding market rhythms and market events provide critical insights into building roadmaps [2]:
Understanding market rhythms help companies understand and leverage opportunities that are predictable and require longer-term planning.
Figure 1 illustrates an example of the market rhythms for three different companies. The vertical axis shows the value delivered to a market, while the horizontal axis depicts the value over time, usually a calendar or fiscal year. The green line in Figure 1 represents a social media company where the value over time is relatively constant, which suggests it is not strongly influenced by market rhythms. The next two examples show more typical market rhythms for companies who must get their products ready for sale well before the annual holiday shopping season. Retail software companies release rarely during that period to avoid any potential disruption while toy makers realize the majority of their sales.
Figure 1. Example market rhythms for different companies
Capturing Market Events
Armed with the understanding of market rhythms, road mapping activities typically focus on the impact of market events. Figure 2 shows three types of events: the release of new regulations, expected moves of a competitor, and technology changes and upgrades.
Market events are typically represented as milestones and strongly impact the specific releases of a solution and may adjust the content and timing of features or solution development activities identified during Program Increment (PI) planning.
Figure 2. Example of market events
Applying Planning Horizons
Effective road mapping efforts require an understanding of the appropriate time horizon. If the horizon is too short, the enterprise may jeopardize alignment and the ability to communicate new future Features and Capabilities. Too long, and the enterprise is basing assumptions and commitments on an uncertain future. Multiple planning horizons provide a balance (Figure 3). The outer levels of the planning horizon are longer-term and describe behavior that is less defined and less committed, while the inner levels are nearer-term, defining better understood and more committed solution behavior.
Figure 3. SAFe Planning Horizons
Each planning horizon is briefly described next:
From a road mapping perspective, the PI roadmap, solution roadmap, and the portfolio roadmap are the most relevant. These are described in the following sections.
The Portfolio Roadmap
The portfolio roadmap illustrates the plan of intent for achieving the portfolio vision, primarily in the form of epics, over an extended period of time. Figure 4 provides an example of a portfolio roadmap.
Figure 4. The portfolio roadmap communicates the longer-term picture
The portfolio roadmap integrates the aspects of solution and PI roadmaps and their milestones into a comprehensive view across all the value streams in the portfolio. It builds the larger picture for communicating to the enterprise and to portfolio stakeholders how the portfolio vision is planned to be achieved over time. It shows a coarse-grained view of the Epics within each value stream. Market events are represented as fixed date milestones at the top of the roadmap, while solution releases are depicted with small boxes. As the time horizon extends, the level of granularity and certainty is reduced. The first year is planned in quarters (e.g., Q1, Q2, etc.), which may or may not align with PI boundaries. The second-year is planned in 6-month increments (e.g., H1 and H2). Anything beyond that is scheduled in years (e.g., Y3).
The Solution Roadmap
The solution roadmap shown in Figure 5 provides a multi-year view similar to a portfolio roadmap. The key difference is that it depicts the planned epics and capabilities to be delivered over time for a specific solution within the portfolio.
Figure 5. The solution roadmap for an autonomous delivery vehicle
Since the solution roadmap, as well as the portfolio roadmap, may span multiple years, both require estimating longer-term initiatives. However, every enterprise must be very careful about such forecasts. While many see long-term predictability as the goal, Lean-Agile Leaders know that every long-term commitment decreases the agility of the enterprise. There can be no Business Agility if the future is already fixed. Therefore these forecasts can and should be updated regularly to reflect new learning and changing market conditions.
PI Roadmap
The PI roadmap (Figure 6) consists of a series of planned PIs with milestones and releases called out. Each element on the roadmap is a feature, capability (or even an epic) that is planned to be completed in a particular PI. The PI roadmap may also reflect fixed-date and learning milestones that occur during that period.
Figure 6. An example of PI roadmap for an autonomous vehicle
Figure 6 illustrates a roadmap that covers three PIs. That length is typically sufficient to communicate intent with stakeholders including business and partners. It is also short enough time frame to keep long-term commitments from interfering with the ability to flex to changing business priorities. This example roadmap consists of a committed PI, and two forecasted PIs, as described in the following sections.
The Committed PI
The committed PI shows the results of the teams’ most recent PI Planning event where they committed to event the program’s PI Objectives. Since the team’s planned the work it is a high-confidence, current PI plan.
Forecasted PIs
Since the business and technical context may change, planning subsequent PIs is less precise. These forecasts are, however, based on prior execution. Given knowledge of the ART velocities, the PI predictability measure, relative priorities, and the history of how much work is devoted to maintenance and other business-as-usual activities, ARTs can generally lay the future features into the roadmap with relative confidence.
Some organizations fill the forecasted PIs sparsely to show available capacity (as shown in Figure 6) and create a more stable plan. Others choose to fill future increments closer to capacity to show a more complete, but likely less stable plan. Regardless of how future PIs are forecast, items don’t become committed until teams plan them during PI planning.
Avoid Turning the Roadmap into a Queue
Lean-Agile Leaders must understand the queuing theory discussed in SAFe Principle #6, avoiding large batches of work, which create long queues wait times. The math tells us that the longer the committed queue, the longer the wait for any new initiative. Let’s examine two different scenarios to further illustrate the problem:
Learn More
[2] Hohmann, Luke. Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions. Addison-Wesley Professional, 2003.
[3] Hohmann, Luke. Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play. Addison-Wesley Professional, 2006.
Agile Product Delivery
It is one of the seven core competencies of the Lean Enterprise, each of which is essential to achieving Business Agility. Each core competency is supported by a specific assessment, which enables the enterprise to assess their proficiency. These core competency assessments, along with recommended improvement opportunities, are available from the Measure and Grow article.
Why Agile Product Delivery?
In order to achieve Business Agility, enterprises must rapidly increase their ability to deliver innovative products and services. To be sure that the enterprise is creating the right solutions for the right customers at the right time, they must balance their execution focus with a customer focus. These capabilities are mutually supportive and create opportunities for sustained market and service leadership. As illustrated in Figure 1, there are three dimensions to agile product delivery.
The sections that follow describe each of these dimensions of agile product delivery in greater detail.
Customer Centricity and Design Thinking
Customer centricity is a mindset and way of doing business that focuses on creating positive engagements as customers experience the products and services the enterprise offers. Customer-centric businesses create greater profits, increase employee engagement, and more thoroughly satisfy customer needs. Customer-centric governments and nonprofits create resilience, sustainability, and the alignment needed to fulfill their mission.
Lean-Agile Enterprises accomplish these goals by applying Design Thinking, an iterative solution development process that ensures solutions are desired by customers and users while also ensuring the solution is feasible, economically viable, and sustainable throughout its lifecycle.
Agile Product Management serves as the central coordinating function for bringing new solutions to market while also ensuring the ongoing success of existing products.
Customer Centricity
Whenever a customer-centric enterprise makes a decision, it deeply considers the effect it will have on its end users [1]. This motivates teams to:
Design Thinking
Design thinking is integral to customer centricity. Design thinking has two main activities, that culminate in a sustainable solution, as shown in Figure 2:
Employing Design Thinking throughout the solution lifecycle assures these three attributes persist for the life of the solution.
Develop on Cadence; Release on Demand
Customer-centric enterprises seek to create a continuous flow of value to its customers. The timing of these releases are determined by market and customer needs, and the enterprise’s own motivation to provide value. Some enterprises may release extremely frequently, while others may be constrained by compliance or other market requirements that motivate less frequent releases. Collectively, SAFe refers to these capabilities as Release on Demand.
Release timing, however, does not coincide with the workflow of the people creating solutions. Teams apply a process model that is optimized for highly variable knowledge work. In SAFe, this is known as Develop on Cadence, a coordinated set of practices that support Agile Teams by providing a reliable series of events and activities that occur on a regular, predictable schedule [3]. Decoupling the events and activities that support the organization creating value from how that value is delivered further promotes Business Agility (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Develop on Cadence; Release on Demand
Agile Team and Agile Release Train Cadences
SAFe’s cadence structure supports Agile Teams and Agile Release Trains (ARTs) in creating and delivering value.
Program Increments are further organized to include additional cadence-based events and activities that promote Business Agility.
Working in Program Increments
Program Increments are the key to creating a cadence-based enterprise. They represent a timebox ‘big enough’ to plan and accomplish substantial work while being ‘small enough’ to promote fast feedback and mid-course correction. Accordingly, a Program Increment has several important activities and events:
While teams and ARTs work on this cadence, the enterprise can leverage the Continuous Delivery Pipeline to release value at any time that market and governance conditions warrant.
Release on Demand
Release on Demand captures the mechanisms and processes by which new functionality is deployed into production and released immediately or incrementally to customers based on demand. Enterprises vary regarding when they release functionality.
In conjunction with stakeholders, Agile Product Management determines when a release should happen, what elements of the system should be released, and which end-users and customers should receive the release. Some products serve markets in which releasing new functionality as soon as it’s available is the optimal choice. Notable examples are modern SaaS software and service providers who have created sophisticated DevOps capabilities that allow them to release value multiple times per day.
Others may serve markets with distinct market rhythms that govern optimal release windows. For example, there is a distinct market rhythm to selling cold-weather merchandise, ranging from clothing to vehicles, that is defined largely by the hemisphere in which you live. The larger supply chain responds to these rhythms, as further outlined in the roadmap article.
Additional factors that influence when an enterprise may wish to release functionality are:
Increasingly sophisticated architectures and technical practices that improve Business Agility also support Release on Demand. For example, product telemetry collects data to measure outcome hypothesis and obtain objective evidence of how customers respond to the value released. Separately releasable components, dark launches, feature toggles, and canary releases maximize business flexibility while ensuring operational stability.
DevOps and the Continuous Delivery Pipeline
While it is easy to agree that Release on Demand is the goal, creating the competency to reliably and skillfully release value whenever desired is hard work. It involves embracing the DevOps mindset and culture and creating an increasingly automated Continuous Delivery Pipeline.
Embracing DevOps Mindset, Culture and Practices
As digital disruption continues to change the world, and as software becomes a bigger part of every company’s ability to deliver and support their products and services, every enterprise faces the need to react to customer demand and needs faster with digital solutions. A common problem for fast delivery has always been the chasm between Development and Operations; the former optimizes for frequent releases and change, the latter optimizes for operational stability. If not addressed, this dichotomy in ‘worldview’ creates a barrier to success.
Popularized by books, including The Phoenix Project [4] and the later DevOps Handbook [5], the ‘DevOps’ movement works to align development, operations, the business, information security, and other areas to work together better by sharing the responsibility for improving business results. The reason is simple: high-performing organizations apply DevOps capabilities to dramatically outperform others at both technical aspects and business outcomes, as Figure 5 illustrates.
Figure 5. Example benefits of DevOps [6] DevOps is the adoption of a mindset, a culture, and a set of technical practices that provides solution elements to the customer without handoffs or excessive external production or operations support. As illustrated in Figure 6, SAFe’s approach to DevOps is grounded in five concepts: Culture, Automation, Lean Flow, Measurement, and Recovery (CALMR).
One advantage of the CALMR model is that it is designed to work with an organization at any level of Business Agility, immediately supporting them as they begin the process of relentless improvement.
The Continuous Delivery Pipeline
The Continuous Delivery Pipeline represents the workflows, activities, and automation needed to shepherd a new piece of functionality from ideation to an on-demand release of value to the end-user. As illustrated in Figure 7, the pipeline consists of four aspects: Continuous Exploration (CE), Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment (CD), and Release on Demand. The pipeline is the most significant element of the agile product delivery competency (Figure 1).
Figure 7. The Continuous Delivery Pipeline
Each Agile Release Train (ART) builds and maintains, or shares with other ARTs, a pipeline with the assets and technologies needed to deliver solution value as independently as possible. The first three elements of the pipeline (CE, CI, and CD) work together to support the delivery of small batches of new functionality, which are then released in accordance with market demand.
Continuous Exploration fosters innovation and builds alignment on what should be built. Design Thinking is used to continually explore market and customer needs, and define a Vision, Roadmap, and a set of Features for a Solution that addresses those needs. During CE, new ideas are raised, refined, and prepared as a list of prioritized features in the Program Backlog. They are pulled into implementation during PI Planning, which begins the continuous integration process.
Continuous Integration builds quality into the development process by continuously integrating the ongoing work of many Agile Teams. All work is version controlled, and new functionality is built and integrated into a full system or solution. Then, it’s validated in a suitable staging environment that ranges from pure cloud-based software systems to physical devices and/or device simulators.
Continuous Deployment captures the processes associated with moving solutions through staging into production environments. As with Continuous Integration, this varies substantially based on the kinds of solutions created and their associated solution context. To ensure solutions are ready for a full release to customers, deployment includes monitoring to provide flexibility in controlling releases, rolling back a release, or deploying incremental updates and patches.
As described above, Release on Demand is the ability to make value available to customers all at once, or in an ad hoc fashion based on market and business needs. Release on Demand is central to Business Agility, as the decisions of what to release to whom and when are key value drivers.
Summary
Businesses need to balance their execution focus with a customer focus to help assure that they are creating the right solutions, for the right customers, at the right time. Agile product delivery is grounded in customer centricity, which puts the customer at the center of every decision. It uses design thinking to ensure the solution is desirable, feasible, viable, and sustainable.
Developing on cadence helps manage the variability inherent in product development. Release on demand decouples the release and development cadence to ensure customers can get what they need when they need it. DevOps and the CDP create the foundation that enables enterprises to release value, in whole or in part, at any time to meet customer and market demand.
The result of Agile product delivery is enhanced business agility with superior outcomes for the enterprise and the customers it serves.
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[2] Osterwalder, Alexander, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, and Alan Smith. Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want. Wiley, 2014.
[3] Leffingwell, Dean. Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise. Addison-Wesley, 2011.
[5] Kim, Gene, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, and John Willis. The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations. IT Revolution Press, 2016.