Customer development is a formal process of identifying potential customers and determining how to meet their needs using testable hypotheses. Entrepreneur and business professor Steve Blank highlighted the Customer Development Manifesto principles in The Startup Owner’s Manual as the core principles for modern startups.
Element
Description
Concept Overview
Customer Development is a methodology for building and growing startups by systematically searching for a scalable and repeatable business model. It was developed by Steve Blank and is designed to help startups avoid failure by focusing on customer feedback, validation, and iteration. The key premise is that startups must first discover who their customers are and what they want before scaling operations.
Customer Discovery
Customer Discovery is the first phase of Customer Development. It involves identifying and validating the problem-solution fit by engaging potential customers in interviews and discussions. The goal is to gain insights into customer needs, pain points, and preferences.
Customer Validation
Customer Validation follows Customer Discovery. In this phase, startups seek to validate whether the proposed solution effectively addresses the identified customer problem. It includes creating prototypes or minimum viable products (MVPs) and testing them with real customers to collect feedback and assess product-market fit.
Customer Creation
Once validation is successful, the focus shifts to Customer Creation. This phase aims to build scalable and repeatable customer acquisition processes. Strategies for attracting and retaining customers are developed, and growth tactics are implemented to expand the customer base.
Company Building
The final phase is Company Building, where the startup transitions into a sustainable business. It involves scaling operations, optimizing processes, and setting a growth trajectory. The startup aims to become a fully-fledged company with a clear business model, revenue streams, and the ability to serve a broader market.
Implications
– Customer-Centric Approach: Emphasizes the importance of customer feedback and validation in building a successful startup. – Risk Mitigation: Helps identify and mitigate risks early in the startup’s development. – Iterative Process: Encourages continuous iteration and adaptation based on customer insights. – Scalability: Aims for scalable growth after validating the business model.
Benefits
– Reduced Failure Rate: Increases the likelihood of startup success by addressing customer needs from the start. – Efficient Resource Allocation: Ensures resources are invested in areas with validated customer demand. – Product-Market Fit: Facilitates the achievement of product-market fit, a critical milestone for startups. – Sustainable Growth: Provides a foundation for sustainable and scalable growth.
Drawbacks
– Time-Consuming: Customer Development can be time-intensive, especially in the early stages. – Requires Adaptability: Startups must be willing to pivot or change direction based on customer feedback, which can be challenging. – Market Risk: Success still depends on market dynamics, competition, and other external factors. – Skill Requirements: Requires expertise in customer research, validation, and marketing.
Use Cases
– Startup Development: Used by early-stage startups to navigate the path from idea to a sustainable business. – Product Launch: Applied to validate product ideas before launching them to a wider audience. – Business Model Testing: Assists in testing and refining business models for viability. – Innovation: Used to drive innovation within established companies by focusing on customer needs.
The Customer Development Manifesto (Source: steveblank.com)
The customer development manifesto is the foundation of the lean startup.
Understanding customer development
Customer development is one of the three foundational elements of a lean start-up. However, many start-ups allocate too many resources to product or service development without first considering the needs of their target audience. Who is the ideal customer and what do features do they need? How can they be reached?
Ultimately, no product or service will ever be successful if no consumers are lining up to buy it. Even if the product in question does satisfy a need, is the size of the addressable market large enough to support it? Indeed, does the business have the ability to scale to meet demand if required?
Customer development addresses all of the above questions by discovering, testing, and validating assumptions that many organizations fail to verify.
The four steps of customer development
Customer development is built on the premise that the business must understand market needs and come up with multiple potential solutions. These solutions must have the capacity to be evaluated by testable hypotheses.
This is performed by implementing these four steps.
1 – Customer discovery
First, the vision of the start-up must form the basis of several purely hypothetical business models. Then, the hypothesis of each model should be tested and validated by understanding the needs of real or potential customers. The focus in customer discovery must remain on customer needs and not on technical features.
2 – Customer validation
As noted earlier, a product or service has to address customer needs and be viable. Customer validation is any method that allows the business to develop a predictable sales process.
Viability can be assessed by considering scalability, market fit, market size, feasibility, and repeatability. Furthermore, what is the weight of the problem? Is the product important? That is, will consumers be willing to part with money to own it? Hypotheses that fail customer validation are scrapped and the business must return to the first step.
3 – Customer creation
During the third step, the business must create demand among end-users and direct them through the preferred sales channel. Only after initial sales are made should efforts be made to increase product awareness. This helps control the cash burn rate and ensures that start-ups avoid spending money trying to attract customers from the wrong target audience.
Of course, every market is different. Some start-ups will need to put more thought into product positioning if there is pre-existing competition.
4 – Company building
In the final step of the customer development process, the business moves from an exploratory and testing phase to a phase of execution.
In other words, the business must fill roles in newly created departments such as sales, marketing, customer service, and business development. This naturally leads to the business beginning to scale up, spending more money on marketing and advertising to drive sales.
With a high demand for a product or service, the business moves from a start-up to a company executing on a verified and validated model.
When to Use Customer Development:
Customer Development is applicable in various product development and entrepreneurial scenarios:
Startup Ventures: Entrepreneurs can use it to validate their business ideas and build products that address real customer needs.
Product Innovation: Established organizations can apply it to innovate and create products that align more closely with market demand.
Market Expansion: When entering new markets or customer segments, organizations can use Customer Development to gain insights and adapt their strategies.
Product Enhancement: Existing products can be improved by incorporating customer feedback and iterating on features.
Risk Mitigation: It helps reduce the risks associated with product development by validating assumptions early in the process.
How to Use Customer Development:
To effectively use Customer Development, follow these guidelines:
Develop hypotheses about customer needs and problems.
Engage potential customers through interviews and surveys to validate or invalidate hypotheses.
Customer Validation:
Build a minimum viable product (MVP) or prototype to test with real customers.
Collect feedback and data on how customers interact with the product.
Iterate based on feedback, making improvements or pivoting if necessary.
Customer Creation:
Focus on customer acquisition and retention strategies.
Monitor key metrics, such as customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer lifetime value (CLV).
Continuously refine marketing and sales efforts based on results.
Company Building:
As the business grows, focus on scaling operations and expanding customer reach.
Maintain a customer-centric culture throughout the organization.
Continue to gather customer feedback and adapt to changing market conditions.
Drawbacks and Limitations of Customer Development:
While Customer Development offers numerous advantages, it also has certain drawbacks and limitations:
Resource Intensive: Collecting and analyzing customer feedback can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, particularly for startups with limited resources.
Not One-Size-Fits-All: Customer Development may not be suitable for all types of products or industries, particularly those with long development cycles or highly regulated markets.
Market Saturation: In competitive markets, it may be challenging to find untapped customer segments or unmet needs.
Customer Bias: Overreliance on customer feedback can sometimes lead to a “feature bloat” problem, where products become overly complex by trying to cater to every customer request.
Limited Vision: Solely relying on customer input may hinder the development of groundbreaking innovations that customers may not be able to envision.
What to Expect from Using Customer Development:
Using Customer Development can lead to several outcomes and benefits:
Product-Market Fit: Expect to increase the likelihood of achieving product-market fit by aligning products more closely with customer needs.
Risk Reduction: Identify and address potential product and market risks early in the development process.
Customer Loyalty: By involving customers in the development process, you can foster a sense of ownership and loyalty among early adopters.
Iterative Improvement: Continuously iterate and improve products, increasing their chances of success in the market.
Market Expansion: Gain insights into new customer segments or markets and tailor strategies accordingly.
Relevance in Modern Product Development and Entrepreneurship:
Customer Development remains highly relevant in modern product development and entrepreneurship, including:
Lean Startup Methodology: Customer Development is a cornerstone of the Lean Startup methodology, which emphasizes rapid experimentation and learning to build successful businesses.
Agile Product Development: Agile methodologies often incorporate Customer Development practices to ensure products meet evolving customer needs.
Tech Startups: Startups in the technology sector frequently use Customer Development to guide product development and achieve product-market fit.
Market Research: Large corporations leverage Customer Development techniques to gain insights into emerging markets and customer preferences.
Innovation Labs: Many organizations establish innovation labs or incubators that apply Customer Development principles to drive innovation.
Conclusion:
Customer Development is a valuable framework for organizations seeking to build successful products and businesses by prioritizing customer feedback and validation. By embracing customer-centricity, iterative learning, and evidence-based decision-making, organizations can reduce risks, increase the chances of achieving product-market fit, and ultimately create products that resonate with their target audiences. While recognizing its resource-intensive nature and limitations, Customer Development remains a foundational approach in modern product development and entrepreneurship.
Case Studies
Customer Discovery:
Airbnb: Airbnb identified a need for unique accommodations by conducting interviews and surveys with travelers who sought more personalized and affordable lodging options.
Dropbox: Dropbox discovered a demand for easy file sharing by observing users’ frustration with email attachments and USB drives and conducting online surveys.
Instagram: Instagram recognized the appeal of photo-sharing among mobile users by observing early adopters’ behavior and feedback.
Tesla: Tesla identified a desire for electric vehicles (EVs) through market research and a prototype roadster, validating the potential demand.
Customer Validation:
Slack: Slack validated its messaging platform by providing early users with direct support and actively seeking their feedback to fine-tune the product.
Uber: Uber validated its ride-hailing service by conducting pilot tests in San Francisco, ensuring both driver and passenger satisfaction before expanding to other cities.
WhatsApp: WhatsApp validated its messaging app’s appeal by offering a free year of service and monitoring user engagement and retention.
Patreon: Patreon validated its crowdfunding platform by initially targeting content creators and artists and ensuring that they could successfully monetize their work.
Customer Creation:
Facebook: Facebook created user engagement by initially focusing on college campuses and expanding its user base virally through social connections.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn encouraged professionals to join by importing their existing contact lists and connecting with colleagues, creating a valuable network effect.
Spotify: Spotify generated demand for its music streaming service by offering free access with ads and allowing users to create and share playlists.
Tinder: Tinder stimulated user interaction by using a swiping interface and gamification to make dating more engaging and accessible.
Company Building:
Salesforce: Salesforce built dedicated sales and customer support teams to grow its CRM software business, providing training and resources to assist customers.
Amazon: Amazon expanded its product offerings, fulfillment centers, and logistics operations to meet increasing demand for online shopping and faster delivery.
Netflix: Netflix developed a content production division to create original series and movies, becoming a content powerhouse and attracting a global audience.
Tesla: Tesla established Gigafactories and charging infrastructure to support mass production of electric vehicles and expand its market reach.
Key takeaways
Customer development is a foundational element of a lean start-up involving the identification and verification of a target audience using testable hypotheses.
Customer development is a means of formally validating common business assumptions such as market size, market demand, and scalability.
Customer development is based on four steps that describe how an emerging start-up can transition to a fully-fledged company with a verified business model.
Key Highlights about Customer Development:
Definition: Customer development is a crucial process within the lean startup methodology, aimed at identifying potential customers, understanding their needs, and validating assumptions through testable hypotheses.
Customer Development Manifesto: Introduced by entrepreneur Steve Blank, the Customer Development Manifesto outlines the principles that guide the process of customer development.
Importance: Customer development addresses the critical aspect of understanding market needs and ensuring there is a demand for the product or service before dedicating resources to its development.
Four Steps of Customer Development:
Customer Discovery: Formulate hypothetical business models based on the startup’s vision, then validate hypotheses by understanding real or potential customer needs. Focus should be on needs, not technical features.
Customer Validation: Develop a predictable sales process to ensure viability of the product or service. Assess scalability, market fit, size, feasibility, and repeatability. Hypotheses failing validation are reevaluated.
Customer Creation: Generate demand among end-users and guide them through preferred sales channels. Initial sales precede efforts to increase product awareness, preventing wasted spending on the wrong target audience.
Company Building: Transition from testing to execution. Build departments like sales, marketing, customer service, and business development. Scale up the business as demand for the product or service grows.
Key Takeaways:
Customer development is integral to lean startup methodology and involves identifying and validating a target audience using testable hypotheses.
It formally validates business assumptions like market demand, size, and scalability.
The process consists of four steps that guide an emerging startup towards becoming a fully operational company with a validated business model.
Related Frameworks
Description
When to Apply
Lean Startup
A methodology for developing businesses and products that aims to shorten product development cycles and rapidly discover if a proposed business model is viable. It involves iterative experimentation, validated learning, and continuous feedback to minimize waste and maximize the chances of success.
When launching new ventures or developing innovative products where uncertainty is high and resources are limited. Applicable in startup environments, entrepreneurial ventures, and corporate innovation initiatives where rapid experimentation and customer validation are essential to mitigate risks and optimize resource allocation.
Design Sprint
A time-constrained, iterative process used to rapidly prototype and validate ideas with real users. It involves identifying and solving critical business challenges through collaborative workshops, prototyping, and user testing to expedite innovation and reduce time to market.
When organizations need to validate concepts, explore ideas, or solve complex problems within a short timeframe. Particularly useful in product development, feature validation, and UX/UI design projects where speed, efficiency, and user feedback are critical to success.
Design Thinking
A human-centered approach to innovation that focuses on understanding and addressing user needs and problems through creative problem-solving techniques. It involves empathizing with users, defining problem statements, ideating potential solutions, prototyping, and testing concepts, and iteratively refining solutions based on user feedback.
When there is a need to deeply understand user needs, generate innovative solutions, and rapidly iterate prototypes. Useful in various stages of product development, from problem identification to solution validation, and in cross-functional collaboration to foster creativity and empathy for users.
Agile Methodology
Agile is a flexible, iterative approach to software development that emphasizes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, and continuous improvement based on regular feedback. It focuses on delivering small, incremental releases and incorporating customer feedback throughout the development process.
When developing software or digital products in dynamic environments where requirements are likely to change and customer needs are uncertain. Suitable for projects requiring frequent adaptation, collaboration, and a customer-centric approach to deliver high-quality solutions quickly.
Rapid Prototyping
Rapid prototyping involves quickly creating mock-ups or prototypes of a product or service to gather feedback and validate assumptions before investing significant resources. It allows teams to visualize ideas, test functionality, and identify potential issues early in the development process.
When exploring new concepts, features, or product ideas to gather feedback from stakeholders, users, or customers. Particularly useful in the early stages of product development to validate assumptions, iterate designs, and make informed decisions before committing to full-scale development.
Customer Journey Mapping
Customer journey mapping is a visual representation of the end-to-end customer experience across various touchpoints and interactions with a product or service. It helps organizations understand customer needs, pain points, and opportunities for improvement throughout their journey.
When organizations seek to gain insights into customer behavior, identify pain points, and optimize the customer experience. It is valuable for aligning cross-functional teams, prioritizing initiatives, and designing strategies to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Jobs-To-Be-Done Framework
The Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) framework focuses on understanding the functional and emotional “jobs” that customers are trying to accomplish when using a product or service. It helps uncover underlying motivations and decision drivers that influence customer behavior.
When organizations want to gain a deeper understanding of customer needs and preferences beyond traditional demographics or usage data. Useful for product innovation, marketing strategy, and customer experience design to align offerings with customer goals and aspirations.
Minimum Viable Product
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the simplest version of a product that allows teams to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. It enables organizations to test hypotheses, gather feedback, and iterate based on real-world usage before investing significant resources.
When launching new products or features to validate assumptions, test market demand, and gather user feedback early in the development process. MVPs help mitigate risks, reduce development costs, and accelerate time to market by focusing on delivering core value propositions and iterating based on customer insights.
Customer Persona
A customer persona is a semi-fictional representation of an ideal customer based on demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data. It helps organizations empathize with and understand different customer segments, their goals, preferences, and pain points, to tailor products and services to their needs effectively.
When organizations want to humanize their target audience, align internal teams, and tailor marketing messages, product features, and customer experiences to specific user segments. Customer personas aid in empathizing with users, prioritizing product features, and designing personalized strategies to meet diverse customer needs and preferences effectively.
Voice of the Customer (VoC)
Voice of the Customer (VoC) refers to the process of capturing and analyzing customer feedback, preferences, and expectations to drive product improvements and enhance the overall customer experience. It involves various methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and social media monitoring to gather insights directly from customers.
When organizations aim to gain a deeper understanding of customer perceptions, preferences, and pain points to inform decision-making and continuous improvement initiatives. VoC programs help prioritize initiatives, identify opportunities for innovation, and foster a customer-centric culture by incorporating customer feedback into strategic planning and operational processes.
AIOps is the application of artificial intelligence to IT operations. It has become particularly useful for modern IT management in hybridized, distributed, and dynamic environments. AIOps has become a key operational component of modern digital-based organizations, built around software and algorithms.
Agile started as a lightweight development method compared to heavyweight software development, which is the core paradigm of the previous decades of software development. By 2001 the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was born as a set of principles that defined the new paradigm for software development as a continuous iteration. This would also influence the way of doing business.
Agile Program Management is a means of managing, planning, and coordinating interrelated work in such a way that value delivery is emphasized for all key stakeholders. Agile Program Management (AgilePgM) is a disciplined yet flexible agile approach to managing transformational change within an organization.
Agile project management (APM) is a strategy that breaks large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. In the APM methodology, each project is completed in small sections – often referred to as iterations. Each iteration is completed according to its project life cycle, beginning with the initial design and progressing to testing and then quality assurance.
Agile Modeling (AM) is a methodology for modeling and documenting software-based systems. Agile Modeling is critical to the rapid and continuous delivery of software. It is a collection of values, principles, and practices that guide effective, lightweight software modeling.
Agile Business Analysis (AgileBA) is certification in the form of guidance and training for business analysts seeking to work in agile environments. To support this shift, AgileBA also helps the business analyst relate Agile projects to a wider organizational mission or strategy. To ensure that analysts have the necessary skills and expertise, AgileBA certification was developed.
Agile leadership is the embodiment of agile manifesto principles by a manager or management team. Agile leadership impacts two important levels of a business. The structural level defines the roles, responsibilities, and key performance indicators. The behavioral level describes the actions leaders exhibit to others based on agile principles.
The andon system alerts managerial, maintenance, or other staff of a production process problem. The alert itself can be activated manually with a button or pull cord, but it can also be activated automatically by production equipment. Most Andon boards utilize three colored lights similar to a traffic signal: green (no errors), yellow or amber (problem identified, or quality check needed), and red (production stopped due to unidentified issue).
Bimodal Portfolio Management (BimodalPfM) helps an organization manage both agile and traditional portfolios concurrently. Bimodal Portfolio Management – sometimes referred to as bimodal development – was coined by research and advisory company Gartner. The firm argued that many agile organizations still needed to run some aspects of their operations using traditional delivery models.
Business innovation is about creating new opportunities for an organization to reinvent its core offerings, revenue streams, and enhance the value proposition for existing or new customers, thus renewing its whole business model. Business innovation springs by understanding the structure of the market, thus adapting or anticipating those changes.
Business model innovation is about increasing the success of an organization with existing products and technologies by crafting a compelling value proposition able to propel a new business model to scale up customers and create a lasting competitive advantage. And it all starts by mastering the key customers.
A consumer brand company like Procter & Gamble (P&G) defines “Constructive Disruption” as: a willingness to change, adapt, and create new trends and technologies that will shape our industry for the future. According to P&G, it moves around four pillars: lean innovation, brand building, supply chain, and digitalization & data analytics.
That is a process that requires a continuous feedback loop to develop a valuable product and build a viable business model. Continuous innovation is a mindset where products and services are designed and delivered to tune them around the customers’ problem and not the technical solution of its founders.
A design sprint is a proven five-day process where critical business questions are answered through speedy design and prototyping, focusing on the end-user. A design sprint starts with a weekly challenge that should finish with a prototype, test at the end, and therefore a lesson learned to be iterated.
Tim Brown, Executive Chair of IDEO, defined design thinking as “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” Therefore, desirability, feasibility, and viability are balanced to solve critical problems.
DevOps refers to a series of practices performed to perform automated software development processes. It is a conjugation of the term “development” and “operations” to emphasize how functions integrate across IT teams. DevOps strategies promote seamless building, testing, and deployment of products. It aims to bridge a gap between development and operations teams to streamline the development altogether.
Product discovery is a critical part of agile methodologies, as its aim is to ensure that products customers love are built. Product discovery involves learning through a raft of methods, including design thinking, lean start-up, and A/B testing to name a few. Dual Track Agile is an agile methodology containing two separate tracks: the “discovery” track and the “delivery” track.
eXtreme Programming was developed in the late 1990s by Ken Beck, Ron Jeffries, and Ward Cunningham. During this time, the trio was working on the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System (C3) to help manage the company payroll system. eXtreme Programming (XP) is a software development methodology. It is designed to improve software quality and the ability of software to adapt to changing customer needs.
Feature-Driven Development is a pragmatic software process that is client and architecture-centric. Feature-Driven Development (FDD) is an agile software development model that organizes workflow according to which features need to be developed next.
A Gemba Walk is a fundamental component of lean management. It describes the personal observation of work to learn more about it. Gemba is a Japanese word that loosely translates as “the real place”, or in business, “the place where value is created”. The Gemba Walk as a concept was created by Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota Production System of lean manufacturing. Ohno wanted to encourage management executives to leave their offices and see where the real work happened. This, he hoped, would build relationships between employees with vastly different skillsets and build trust.
GIST Planning is a relatively easy and lightweight agile approach to product planning that favors autonomous working. GIST Planning is a lean and agile methodology that was created by former Google product manager Itamar Gilad. GIST Planning seeks to address this situation by creating lightweight plans that are responsive and adaptable to change. GIST Planning also improves team velocity, autonomy, and alignment by reducing the pervasive influence of management. It consists of four blocks: goals, ideas, step-projects, and tasks.
The ICE Scoring Model is an agile methodology that prioritizes features using data according to three components: impact, confidence, and ease of implementation. The ICE Scoring Model was initially created by author and growth expert Sean Ellis to help companies expand. Today, the model is broadly used to prioritize projects, features, initiatives, and rollouts. It is ideally suited for early-stage product development where there is a continuous flow of ideas and momentum must be maintained.
An innovation funnel is a tool or process ensuring only the best ideas are executed. In a metaphorical sense, the funnel screens innovative ideas for viability so that only the best products, processes, or business models are launched to the market. An innovation funnel provides a framework for the screening and testing of innovative ideas for viability.
According to how well defined is the problem and how well defined the domain, we have four main types of innovations: basic research (problem and domain or not well defined); breakthrough innovation (domain is not well defined, the problem is well defined); sustaining innovation (both problem and domain are well defined); and disruptive innovation (domain is well defined, the problem is not well defined).
The innovation loop is a methodology/framework derived from the Bell Labs, which produced innovation at scale throughout the 20th century. They learned how to leverage a hybrid innovation management model based on science, invention, engineering, and manufacturing at scale. By leveraging individual genius, creativity, and small/large groups.
The Agile methodology has been primarily thought of for software development (and other business disciplines have also adopted it). Lean thinking is a process improvement technique where teams prioritize the value streams to improve it continuously. Both methodologies look at the customer as the key driver to improvement and waste reduction. Both methodologies look at improvement as something continuous.
A startup company is a high-tech business that tries to build a scalable business model in tech-driven industries. A startup company usually follows a lean methodology, where continuous innovation, driven by built-in viral loops is the rule. Thus, driving growth and building network effects as a consequence of this strategy.
As pointed out by Eric Ries, a minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort through a cycle of build, measure, learn; that is the foundation of the lean startup methodology.
Kanban is a lean manufacturing framework first developed by Toyota in the late 1940s. The Kanban framework is a means of visualizing work as it moves through identifying potential bottlenecks. It does that through a process called just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing to optimize engineering processes, speed up manufacturing products, and improve the go-to-market strategy.
Jidoka was first used in 1896 by Sakichi Toyoda, who invented a textile loom that would stop automatically when it encountered a defective thread. Jidoka is a Japanese term used in lean manufacturing. The term describes a scenario where machines cease operating without human intervention when a problem or defect is discovered.
The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle was first proposed by American physicist and engineer Walter A. Shewhart in the 1920s. The PDCA cycle is a continuous process and product improvement method and an essential component of the lean manufacturing philosophy.
RAD was first introduced by author and consultant James Martin in 1991. Martin recognized and then took advantage of the endless malleability of software in designing development models. Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a methodology focusing on delivering rapidly through continuous feedback and frequent iterations.
Retrospective analyses are held after a project to determine what worked well and what did not. They are also conducted at the end of an iteration in Agile project management. Agile practitioners call these meetings retrospectives or retros. They are an effective way to check the pulse of a project team, reflect on the work performed to date, and reach a consensus on how to tackle the next sprint cycle. These are the five stages of a retrospective analysis for effective Agile project management: set the stage, gather the data, generate insights, decide on the next steps, and close the retrospective.
Scaled Agile Lean Development (ScALeD) helps businesses discover a balanced approach to agile transition and scaling questions. The ScALed approach helps businesses successfully respond to change. Inspired by a combination of lean and agile values, ScALed is practitioner-based and can be completed through various agile frameworks and practices.
The SMED (single minute exchange of die) method is a lean production framework to reduce waste and increase production efficiency. The SMED method is a framework for reducing the time associated with completing an equipment changeover.
The Spotify Model is an autonomous approach to scaling agile, focusing on culture communication, accountability, and quality. The Spotify model was first recognized in 2012 after Henrik Kniberg, and Anders Ivarsson released a white paper detailing how streaming company Spotify approached agility. Therefore, the Spotify model represents an evolution of agile.
As the name suggests, TDD is a test-driven technique for delivering high-quality software rapidly and sustainably. It is an iterative approach based on the idea that a failing test should be written before any code for a feature or function is written. Test-Driven Development (TDD) is an approach to software development that relies on very short development cycles.
Timeboxing is a simple yet powerful time-management technique for improving productivity. Timeboxing describes the process of proactively scheduling a block of time to spend on a task in the future. It was first described by author James Martin in a book about agile software development.
Scrum is a methodology co-created by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland for effective team collaboration on complex products. Scrum was primarily thought for software development projects to deliver new software capability every 2-4 weeks. It is a sub-group of agile also used in project management to improve startups’ productivity.
Scrumban is a project management framework that is a hybrid of two popular agile methodologies: Scrum and Kanban. Scrumban is a popular approach to helping businesses focus on the right strategic tasks while simultaneously strengthening their processes.
Scrum anti-patterns describe any attractive, easy-to-implement solution that ultimately makes a problem worse. Therefore, these are the practice not to follow to prevent issues from emerging. Some classic examples of scrum anti-patterns comprise absent product owners, pre-assigned tickets (making individuals work in isolation), and discounting retrospectives (where review meetings are not useful to really make improvements).
Scrum at Scale (Scrum@Scale) is a framework that Scrum teams use to address complex problems and deliver high-value products. Scrum at Scale was created through a joint venture between the Scrum Alliance and Scrum Inc. The joint venture was overseen by Jeff Sutherland, a co-creator of Scrum and one of the principal authors of the Agile Manifesto.
Six Sigma is a data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating errors or defects in a product, service, or process. Six Sigma was developed by Motorola as a management approach based on quality fundamentals in the early 1980s. A decade later, it was popularized by General Electric who estimated that the methodology saved them $12 billion in the first five years of operation.
Stretch objectives describe any task an agile team plans to complete without expressly committing to do so. Teams incorporate stretch objectives during a Sprint or Program Increment (PI) as part of Scaled Agile. They are used when the agile team is unsure of its capacity to attain an objective. Therefore, stretch objectives are instead outcomes that, while extremely desirable, are not the difference between the success or failure of each sprint.
The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an early form of lean manufacturing created by auto-manufacturer Toyota. Created by the Toyota Motor Corporation in the 1940s and 50s, the Toyota Production System seeks to manufacture vehicles ordered by customers most quickly and efficiently possible.
The Total Quality Management (TQM) framework is a technique based on the premise that employees continuously work on their ability to provide value to customers. Importantly, the word “total” means that all employees are involved in the process – regardless of whether they work in development, production, or fulfillment.
The waterfall model was first described by Herbert D. Benington in 1956 during a presentation about the software used in radar imaging during the Cold War. Since there were no knowledge-based, creative software development strategies at the time, the waterfall method became standard practice. The waterfall model is a linear and sequential project management framework.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
