Innovation in a pandemic: Moving Away From Fully Fleshed Out Products
During pandemic corporations faced the challenge of having to pivot quickly to remote working. In many cases technology had to be upgraded with Zoom and similar platforms being adopted.
We have seen numerous success stories, many with new technology adopted within weeks and in some cases even days instead of pre-coronavirus adoption times of months or even years. Here the key focus was on speed and immediate support instead of design and perfection.
Companies have learned that employees can accept initial issues from technology adoption as long as communication throughout the process is clear and the new technology brings immediate positive impact in their daily activities. The same applies to customers during product launches and technology upgrades.
Those successful stories should be leveraged after the pandemic, with corporations adopting an agile approach to product launch instead of the old waterfall approach. In particular there should be a focus on quickly launching an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to the market and iterating afterwards based on customer feedback.
The following steps should support the agile approach:
1. Launch an MVP to the market
Focus should be on launching an immediate solution and not a fully fleshed out product. As such, the team should be able to launch the MVP within short timeframes.
WHAT: Understand key customer needs
HOW: Translate those needs into functionalities
Prioritise: Critically analyse those functionalities. Are they supporting immediate needs from the customer “Must Have” or are they “Good to Have”. If they are “Good to Have” they should not be part of your MVP but instead considerate in the reiteration phase
WHEN: Make a project plan. Start by agreeing product launch deadline and work backwards
2. Iterate
Go back to the board and identify the next customer need you are trying to solve for. Listen to customer feedback on current functionalities and identify what worked and didn’t work.
Note that the roll out of new functionalities and improvements should be characterised by quick turnarounds.
WHAT: Identify customer need
HOW: Go back to the board and identify functionalities that will tackle the customer need. Some functionalities should be brought from previous discussions (point 1)
WHEN: Again, identify the functionality roll out deadline and work backwards
3. Iterate
Repeat step 2
While some companies have adopted the concepts of an agile approach with sprints and scrums in place, the concept of delivering an MVP has less traction in corporate settings. Product Owners and teams aim for a fully fleshed out product instead of an immediate solution that satisfies the customer immediate needs.
Critical thinking is required during the definition of the MVP functionalities and input from engineers and programmers on realistic timelines for functionalities delivery.
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