Make use of the Lean Startup

We own the strategy for our product (as well as the tactics) in our role as product managers. Scrum and the Product Owner role are great for learning the basic product management tactics required as an Associate Product Manager, but Scrum is tactical. Scrum gives us the backlog to work with (which is awesome) but doesn’t help us to develop opportunities in the first place, or provide tools to develop a strategy for optimising the value of our products and services.

The Lean Startup method by Eric Ries is a great at helping us understand how to develop opportunities, then optimise the value of product and services:

• The Lean Startup method was published in 2011 and comes from lean manufacturing, design thinking, customer development, and agile development
• The ‘pivot’ is at the heart of the Lean Startup: pivots represent the option to rapidly build, test and learn so that we can fail quickly and cheaply
• The method is characterised by an extremely fast cycle time, a focus on what customers want (without asking them), and a scientific approach to making decisions
• The method is most applicable for areas of extreme uncertainty, bringing strategy to extreme uncertainty through:
  • Validated learning
  • Rapid build-measure-learn feedback loops
  • Accountability (measure, manage, and prioritise).

Lots of The Lean Startup method now sounds obvious. This is in part because it’s had a huge influence in the years since it was published and underpins how lots of organisations work. More specifically, it was an influence on the Government Digital Service which was being developed around the same time as it was published - you can see lots of The Lean Startup method implied in the GDS Service Toolkit.

Reading:

• The Lean Startup, Eric Ries
• The Lean Startup for Product Managers, Scott Colfer