Product development is complex. Many organisations are relatively weak at predictive decision-making in such unpredictable environments. Traditional predictive/plan-based approaches exist in organisations, even those using Scrum. Many organisations believe they know what their customers want. But these beliefs are more often than not untested assumptions, many of which later turn out to be incorrect. This can happen for a range of reasons:
- Customers change their minds about what they want
- The market shifts due to changes in technology.
- Competitors launch new products that alter the landscape
- The economy shifts, changing customer demand
This results in wasted effort building things that do not have value for customers. Organisations that continually make these mistakes will struggle to remain competitive.
One thing we can do to help all this is better connect the teams building products to their customers. We can get out and talk to customers rather than predicting things from inside our organisations. We can replace at least some of the guesswork with customer discovery and learning practices. This will help us validate our riskiest assumptions and reduce potential waste.
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