Building quality-in and keeping technical debt in check are two of the most important goals to support long-term sustainable product development. Adopting the right engineering practices allows teams to focus on innovation and value delivery, rather than wasting time on fixing problems or avoiding quality issues. BookingBug faced a near-death situation when it had accumulated too much technical debt due
Technical debt is a silent enemy of every product team
Technical debt is the silent enemy of every product team. Product development activities are hectic, as teams try to jam as many features as possible into a single release, and as the business pushes for higher productivity. At times, development teams make shortcuts as they push for a deadline; make architectural choices to fit into the current environment and delay
What is Scrum?
Scrum is an Agile framework for developing new products and extending existing ones with rapid cycles of incremental development and customer feedback
If Agile fails, blame Product management
Solid Product management and discovery practices are at the foundation of any product development effort. I often find that when Agile fails, it’s not because “Agile” doesn’t work. It’s because the organization has not taken the rights steps to foster a product development mindset. Here I share a few tips on how to support Product and Agile transformations.
What’s in an Agile transformation?
Today’s market is increasingly competitive as new products are launched daily and entire industries are thrown upside down by innovators. Think of Uber and Lyft, how they have revolutionized the taxi industry, which — caught by surprise — is struggling to redefine its identity and maintain market relevance; or the recent purchase of Whole Foods by Amazon, the leader of
Case study: BookingBug
BookingBug (now Jrni) faced a near death event due to technical debt and saved itself by adopting the right engineering practices. Bookingbug is a company that provides scheduling and appointment-setting capabilities across a variety of industries. Founded in 2008 in the UK, in recent years it has built a strong reputation among enterprise customers around the world for its powerful
Michelangelo the first Agilist?
The meeting with the customer did not go well. The prototype was not yet finished, and the customer wasn’t able to grasp the qualities of the idea he was presenting. This project was already over budget, and there was no clear line of sight on its completion. By all measures, it was taking too long to put together, and the
Being Agile versus just doing Agile
In today’s age many organizations are moving towards implementing Agile as their development practice. This is great, and a great step in the right direction. But “doing Agile” is very different from “being Agile” as the right mindset may not be fully adopted. “Doing Agile” means adopting and implementing Agile methodologies, ensuring the development team (and partners) follow the Agile