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Evolving and Growing with Lean Startup by Valerie Gofman
The document discusses the challenges and processes involved in innovating within an established tech product organization, emphasizing the importance of lean thinking and effective communication. It highlights the roles of engineering, sales, and operations teams in driving innovation while maintaining focus on customer needs and market changes. Key takeaways include the significance of iterative communication, collaboration across teams, and a holistic approach to product development that aligns with the company's vision.
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Evolving and Growing with Lean Startup by Valerie Gofman
- 1. Evolution of aTech Product Organization Thinking Lean While Innovating in an Existing Business Valerie Gofman valgofman@gmail.com
- 2. Challenge: Your company is:Established in the market! You want to: Build new product
- 3. When? What? Why? Doesn’tmatter…process matters!
- 4. Let’s think about…engineering/development Why? Well, theybuild the product (duh!)
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- 8. engineering/development What we did: •Two teams • Existing • “Innovate” • Increased priority of innovation • 2 groups 1 team
- 9. engineering/development What were challenges: • Experimenting •Knowledge Transfer • Communication
- 10. engineering/development Why/what was effective: • Smallteam = foundation • Business priority • Rapid cycles
- 11. engineering/development • 80/20 rule Takeaways! •Iterate on communication • Respect
- 12. engineering/development You don’t wantit to be like
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- 15. sales/biz dev/marketing Relationships & Positioning •Customer dev • Brand story • Competitors
- 16. sales/biz dev/marketing Example • Opportunity(sales/exec) • But…disrupting new dev Sharethrough for Publishers! • Minimal, lightweight
- 17. sales/biz dev/marketing • Layout all req’s What we did: • Big picture • Basics
- 18. sales/biz dev/marketing • Importantquestions: • HOW do we compare? • WHY are we falling short? • ARE we going in the right direction?
- 19. sales/biz dev/marketing • Marketchanging Challenges • Focus = reality ? • Customer support
- 20. sales/biz dev/marketing • NarrowMVP scope Takeaways! • Re-evaluate and re-confirm direction • Partnership with sales/biz dev
- 21. Let’s think about…operations Why? Theyrun the biz!
- 22. operations Why not… Increase headcount? Newprocess/training?
- 23. operations • First usage GetShit Done • Internal customer • Actual customer contact
- 24. operations You don’t wantthem to be like
- 25. operations • Wizard-of-Oz manualworkarounds What works: • Early product adopter • Feedback
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- 27. I don’t thinkso. “MVV” - Minimum Viable Vision same process as MVP, but thinking about the overall company story and vision
- 28. mvv What does it reallymean? • Different iterations • Important to think about the overall UX • Business Side • Dev Side • How? • Branding, experience, story consistent • Everyone is part of QA
- 29. MVV = productkeeping company in mind • No process is set in stone • Overcommunicate • Stakeholders in the loop and in mind • Company vision
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Editor's Notes
- #3 Company is: Established in the market, mature sales team, repeat clients, solid partnerships You want to Break out with a brand new product, while maintaining existing business
- #4 External decision: customer requestsInternal decision: company decides to test hypothesis based on research
- #5 Highest cost center, strategic headcount allocation, product-minded, developing for the future
- #6 Can’t you hire more people? Build a new team for the new product?OK, what if you get more funding? We can budget for it, come on!
- #7 Having new people on the team at once is more disruptive and keeps existing members constantly thinking about future integration of new product
- #9 Split into two uneven teams:One: maintain existing businessOne: innovate, build/break/ship quicklyEventually, measured positive business success, increased priority of innovationTwo teams incorporated into one team, after many iterations of the organization. It wasn’t a silver bullet approach, but we continued to reevaluate
- #10 Knowledge transfer/ learning curveExperimenting with different structure organizationCommunication, communication, communication! Obviously, one product team with two business focuses keeping priorities and comunication straight between two engineering organizations is immensely challenging.
- #11 Initial small team sets foundation of new productResource allocation parallels business priority at any given timeContinuing customer development cycle with incorporated teams
- #12 Keep in mind 80/20 resource : revenueUtilize existing team members to your benefit!Keep iterating on communicationRespect the team, product development will flow
- #14 Interact with customers, bring in revenue, represent company brand and show off products
- #15 Can’t the team just forward-sell? What’s the big deal, why wouldn’t you just embellish the product story?
- #16 Important players in customer developmentCommon interest: driving more $$$Balance brand message with realityCompetitors
- #17 Sharethrough for Publishers– tool allowing our partners to leverage our technologyDiscovered opportunity for existing + to acquire new publishers (sales/exec driven)As prod/eng, focus was on rapid BML cycles of our new auction platformBig question: what is minimal set of features, lightest way to build them while continuing to build new platform?
- #18 Started with large list of requirements from sales & publishersFrom large list of req’s, what were minimum “can’t live without” set of featuresOn dev side: what is most lightweight, least disruptive way to build the tool?
- #19 Answer important questions:HOW do we compare? - Competitive feature set matrix (ongoing)WHY are we falling short? – Customer development learnings (weekly)ARE we going in the right direction? – Re-evaluate strategically per market/revenue goals (3-6 month)
- #20 Continuing to re-evaluate position of new product in rapidly evolving marketKeeping eng/devfocus in check alongside novel customer requests Customer development. It’s hard!
- #21 Narrow down scope of MVP, make sure that it makes sense with current and foreseeable iteration of devSet aside time to re-evaluate and confirm directionCustomer development involves a partnership with sales/biz dev
- #22 Run the innerworkings of the business, feedback source about new product, internal customers
- #23 Can’t you just increase headcount to execute the new product ops?How do you keep cognitive load low with new process/training?
- #24 May have first usage of new product (esp. if software)Internal customer = feedback + discern (who is design target?)Have customer’s needs in mind
- #26 Wizard-of-Oz manual workaroundsBefore training entire team, enlist early product adopter/super user (close to product team)Continue to suss out feedback to iterate on features
- #29 Can and should go through different iterationsImportant to think about the overall UXProcess on the (business side)New, low effort features aka Low Hanging Fruit(development side)Examples/details: Keeping branding consistent, cohesive experience and story for the customerGood QA (everyone in the company is part of the QA process)
- #30 No process is set in stoneOvercommunicateKeep each stakeholder engineering / sales&marketing / operations in the loop and in mindCompany (not just product/feature set) vision/goals front and center