Articles

Browse articles on product development, agile methodologies, portfolio management, and innovation strategy.

Capacity Models in Agile Development

by John Sadler

A good capacity model is your secret weapon for improving your ability to deliver value rapidly. This paper describes how capacity models work and steps to develop your own.

Learning Loops and Customer Satisfaction

by John Sadler

Many leaders view Net Promoter Score as the standard for measuring customer satisfaction, but by itself NPS is useless for deciding what ought to change to drive improvement. Read this paper to learn how to develop habits that drive improvement in customer outcomes.

Product Offering Strategy

Product Offering: How to Create an Effective Strategy

by TCGen

A product offering is a group of features, services, or goods that work together to deliver a specific value proposition to the customer. A well-designed product offering can help a business stand out from its competitors, attract new customers, and retain existing ones.

Consulting Deliverables: A Comprehensive Guide

by TCGen

Consultants provide tangible and intangible outcomes to clients through consulting deliverables. Some examples of consulting deliverables include reports, presentations, assessments, analyses, models, plans, designs, prototypes, and training materials.

Five Habits That Can Accelerate Product Development

by John Sadler

Better development habits let your team deliver more value, faster. This paper explores five key habits that the team at Agilent’s Software division adopted to double their productivity and build competitive advantage in the contested market for laboratory informatics.

Program Management

Program Management vs. Product Management

by TCGen

The titles of program manager and product manager sound similar, but they serve quite different functions in an organization. The skills and job title descriptions of these two professionals are distinct.

Innovation Best Practices: Creating Better Innovations Faster

Innovation Best Practices: Creating Better Innovations Faster

by John Carter

Our clients often ask us how they can become more innovative. Some seem to believe that innovation appears as if by magic. Many believe that there is no process for innovation. We have identified three innovation best practices that are research-verified, an end-to-end series of steps that yield the best ideas.

The Sprint Planning Scorecard Increases Project Predictability

The Sprint Planning Scorecard Increases Project Predictability

by Jeanne Bradford

Agile is not just for software anymore. Many companies that develop tangible products – be they hardware or mixed software/hardware systems – are applying techniques, like the sprint scoreboard borrowed from Agile. By combining Agile with traditional processes, they are accelerating programs and delivering winning products.

Agile Heat Map for Sprint Demos

Sprints and Demos: Twin Beacons of Accountability

by John Carter

Two of the most effective and beneficial of these practices are sprint demos. Powered by these twin aspects of Agile, development teams of all manner of products can increase accountability and make programs faster and more predictable.

Project Efficiency Chart

Project Efficiency: Getting More Done by Doing Less

by John Carter

Managers want to optimize their resources by loading them up and have them do more on the priority list to satisfy the executive suite and improve project efficiency. The optimum load is approximately 2 projects – one large and one small.

Why Retrospectives are a Waste of Time

by John Carter

Preparation is key to a winning retrospective. The most important goals in most programs are time to market, a winning feature set, and quality. The best method is to collect the events that impacted these factors using a timeline.

Project Boundaries Four Fields Map

Getting a Project Back on the Rails

by Jeanne Bradford

Setting “project boundaries and conditions” at the time of a project’s approval is an effective way to create a “contract” between the management and project teams.

Apple

Agile Intelligence Consulting

by TCGen

Agile Intelligence Scaled Agile Consulting for Leaders Are you looking to transform your organization's software development practices to deliver value faster and more effectively? We have helped some

What is an Agile Roles and Responsibilities Matrix? A Step-by-Step Guide

by TCGen

A responsibility assignment matrix is a technique for arranging agile team roles. It outlines the responsibilities of each team member by tagging them with one of four labels as follows: R for responsible, A for accountable, C for consulted, and I for informed (RACI). Project managers use RAM to guide scrum teams.

Agile Transformations and its Five Foundations Steps to Scaled & Distributed Agile Development

Agile Transformation

by John Sadler

Learn about the Agile Transformation Process to smoothly transition from a traditional organization structure and embrace agile practices

Product management processes diagram

Product Owner vs Product Manager

by TCGen

Do you want to know more about the difference between product owners and managers? Learn more in our product owner vs product manager guide prepared by our team

Product Development Metrics

by TCGen

Boost innovation with TCGen’s Product Development Metrics Consulting. Enhance leadership, make superior decisions, and drive remarkable growth today!

Product Development Metrics Tools

by TCGen

These Product Development Metrics Tools are based on real life examples, and have been tested in the field with clients on multiple engagements. We often are stuck when first getting started working on a complex issue, because we don’t know how to take the first step.

Circle Dot Chart

Product Development Process Tools

by TCGen

These Product Development Process Tools are based on real life examples, and have been tested in the field with clients on multiple engagements. We often are stuck when first getting started working on a complex issue, because we don’t know how to take the first step.

Product Development checklist

Product Development Checklist

by John Carter

The fastest way to destroy an Agile implementation is to let functional silos get in the way. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. And it happens because many companies underestimate the organizational implications of a successful Agile implementation.

Innovation: Are Two Systems Better Than One?

by John Carter

In too many companies, the front end of development remains fuzzy. The same companies that will micro-manage IT, or spend time simplifying a portion of their manufacturing operations, show little interest in improving the early stage innovation activities that drive future growth.

Attitude Influence Diagram: Eliminating Political Roadblocks

Attitude Influence Diagram: Eliminating Political Roadblocks

by Jeanne Bradford

Have you ever had an excellent product concept derailed by internal politics? It is frustrating since good ideas that could benefit the company as well as the individuals involved are blocked for irrational causes. The Attitude Influence Diagram is one tool that helps to overcome political obstacles.

Risk Management Matrix

Risk Management Matrix: Anticipating and Mitigating Risk

by John Carter

You can’t take the risk out of invention and no project is completely risk-free. But you can reduce the risk, even in the most innovative programs. How? By anticipating it. The Risk Management Matrix is an elegant way to anticipate, manage, and mitigate product development risks.

Circle Dot Chart: Clarifying Responsibilities

Circle Dot Chart: Clarifying Responsibilities

by John Carter

Sorting out who does what on a project is pretty basic. Clear tasks with clear responsibilities and deadlines is Project Management 101. But how many projects have you managed where it was unclear who was responsible for a deliverable until it turned into a mess? The Circle Dot Chart addresses this issue.

Event Timeline

Visualizing the Unexpected

by Jeanne Bradford

Project post mortems can be an excellent tool for learning from mistakes and implementing process and decision-making improvements.

Half-Life Diagram

Forecasting the Future

by John Carter

The Improvement Forecaster consists of an equation, and a graphical plot of expected improvement over time. It uses estimated degrees of technical and organizational complexity, and based on prior programs, estimates a rate of improvement.

Risk Management Matrix

How to Manage Risk Proactively

by John Carter

Innovation entails many kinds of risk: technical, market, or risks related to external events. Product developers can’t avoid it, but they can do more to mitigate risks.

Product Vision - Between Strategy & Roadmaps

Product Vision - Between Strategy & Roadmaps

by John Carter

Have you ever wondered how to create a great product vision? Let’s show you. Start with some examples to get your reference frame properly set. Then look at some of the formats that might work best for you.

Apple Logo

Empowering Teams Through Metrics at Apple

by John Carter

Four times Apple tried and failed to adopt a consistent product development process. We established a target metric with the aim of seeding the changes within the organization so that they took root.

Optical modulator Project Risk spider diagram

Anticipating Risks: The Risk Mind Map

by John Carter

The Risk Mind Map enables a team to create a comprehensive risk profile. It allows management to anticipate where risks might arise and to prepare to meet these challenges more effectively.

Small Bar Graph

Agile Burndown Graphs

by TCGen

In agile development, the team goes through the whole build/integrate/test cycle with the goal of solving the greatest number of user stories or requirements per build. Tracking the number of user stories completed per build combines many best practices into one easy-to-use system.

Nine-step Initiative Plan

Jump Starting Teams

by Jeanne Bradford

New programs spin up every day, but most teams get off to a bad start. In a rush to get going, they forego a few simple steps that would help position their programs for success.