Improving Product Team Execution

Product Team Effectiveness

In Agile, Business Analysis, Marketing, Product Management, Product Management Facts, product manager, Product Marketing, Product Owner, Product Teams, Project Management, Scrum, Skills, Take Charge Product Management, The Study of Product Team Performance, User Experience by [email protected]Leave a Comment

Something I find most valuable about the Global Study of Product Team Performance Survey is how it shines light on team needs. The two questions I review here are a case in point.

Question: Select the top three things you believe would improve the effectiveness of your product team. (Choose three.)

Response Percentage
A change in product development methodology 29.9%
Increased executive sponsorship 24.8%
Highly skilled engineering staff 40.2%
Additional testing/QA staff 29.1%
Additional user experience staff 33.5%
Additional project managers or scrum masters 11.0%
Additional product managers or owners 18.5%
Improved cross-department communication 45.3%
Provide training 34.6%
Tools or automation 32.4%

 

What the Answers Reveal About Product Team Effectiveness

Two solutions stood out as having the potential to improve the product team’s effectiveness. These were: Improve cross-department communication (45.3%) and bring on highly skilled engineering staff (40.2%). Also receiving significant levels of response were:

  • Provide training (34.6%)
  • Bring on additional user experience staff (33.5%)
  • Embrace more tools and automation (32.4%)
  • Change product development methodology (29.9%)
  • Bring in additional testing/QA staff (29.1%).

 

Question: Which of the following methodologies best describes the way your organization develops products?

Response Percentage
Agile/Scrum 48%
Blended (Some Waterfall, some Agile) 31.9%
Kanban 4.3%
Don’t Know 6.3%
Other 0.8%
Waterfall 8.7%

 

A Closer Look at Responses

Organizations relying on the Agile/Scrum methodology for product development continued to rise dramatically, a trend line we have seen since 2012. Nearly half (48.0%) of organizations now rely on it. A Blended approach combining some Waterfall and some Agile practices came in a distant second at 31.9%. This is a great decrease from previous years’ responses. But falling off even faster is Waterfall at 8.7%. Waterfall is 25% below the response it received just two years ago.  It is 36% below last year’s tally. Kanban, at 4.3% continues to rise in use, but remains small overall. It is interesting that 6.3% if respondents were not sure what methodology was used in their organization.

Looking Ahead

In my post next week I’ll share further results for the latest Global Study Product Team Performance Survey. We’ll continue considering what these results tell us about the state of product management and development today.

 

Advancing the Profession of Product Management™
website I consulting I training I toolkits I books I blog I twitter

Leave a Comment