Lethal Mistakes in Product Development

Welcome to PremierAgile!

Recognized for 'Outstanding Leadership in Education and Learning' by the Education 2.0 Conference Dubai 2024

We are proudly recognized for Excellence in Agile Consulting and Transformation Services – 2023 by Economic Times and Times of India!

*Avail a Flat 10% Discount Across all our certification courses

*Avail Zero Interest EMI

We Offer World-class guidance to transform yourself as well as your organizations

Mega Offer! Access our Advanced courses for  just 21,999/- +Taxes

PremierAgile

With an objective to enable continuous learning and progression for our learners, PremierAgile curated several learning articles in the areas of Agile, Scrum, Product Ownership, Scaling, Agile Leadership, Tools & Frameworks, latest market trends, new innovations etc...

The 5 Most Lethal Mistakes in Product Development

The 5 Most Lethal Mistakes in Product Development

The product development process is the most crucial part of completing the end Product Goal. In the process, Developers often face various challenges by committing lethal mistakes. So how to prevent such errors that can slow down the product delivery goal? First, the Product Owner must figure out what product development mistakes are happening in the project! For that, he can follow this guide highlighting the most common product development mistakes that often occur in various projects. So let’s get started!

1. Still Following Complex Waterfall Model

Companies with complex organizational structures face the most difficulties throughout the product development lifecycle. These organizations still follow the old software development process instead of supporting Digital Transformation. Earlier product development methodologies followed the Waterfall Model for the Software Development Life Cycle. As every phase of the waterfall model required full completion before moving to the next stage, this model promoted longer product delivery times. 

The only solution is to adopt modern Agile methodologies like Scrum, Kanban, and XP programming. As a result, the Developers of these organizations can resolve their software development challenges and provide optimal end-user satisfaction. Depending upon the organization’s design patterns, the Product Owner and DevOps engineer can choose the proper Agile methodology and fix the leather product development mistakes.

2. High Dependency On The Product Owner & Project Manager    

In this case, the Product Owner is responsible for delivering an enhanced Business Case without enough resources. As such, the Product Owner coordinates with the project manager to develop a high-level product delivery blueprint. This leads the Product Owner to deal with multiple Product Backlogs. As a result, the Developers fail to deliver consistent productivity while working based on Agile Approaches. 

Often, organizations don’t utilize Scrum and the Scrum Team to handle the entire product development workflow. In this case, the Product Manager is primarily responsible for product development. He manages different teams of Developers, Testers, and administrators to design the Product Roadmap, create User Stories, build a technical design, and monitor the end-to-end development process. Naturally, the project manager fails to play the role of a Certified Scrum Master in the Daily Scrum. As a result, the development team fails to collaborate smoothly with other teams and faces serious product development issues.

3. Focusing On Technology & Not On The Product

Yes, technology is the building block of any product development. But it’s not everything! When it comes to planning a successful Product Strategy, it requires a lot for the CSPO to develop a well-structured Product Vision that matches the technology.

If technology doesn’t support the Product Vision, it becomes impossible for any Agile Practitioner to turn the vision into reality. In order to identify the right technology, project managers can consider the following points:

  • The role of third-party technology partners.
  • What technology can bring the best outcomes?
  • What libraries or SDKs can be used to establish faster deployments?
  • What product functionalities to focus on for initial builds?
  • What type of User Stories to follow before publishing the product?
  • Which technology can solve the existing SDLC problems?

4. Prioritizing Cognitive Biases

Today, Automation is revolutionizing the process of infrastructure deployment, code deployment, and software testing processes. However, as an Agilist, the Product Owner must create a unique Product Strategy with enough space to utilize human brains. 

Many times the product development process gets affected by a lot of cognitive biases. Many cognitive biases negatively affect the organization’s Definition of Done. So what are these cognitive biases?

  • Innovator Bias: The team leaders need to ascertain the development problems that can arise during the product development process to avoid falling in love with the Product Vision.
  • Confirmation Bias: This type of cognitive bias refers to the Developers who only affirm their beliefs and don’t value other team members’ opinions. 

That is why the Project Manager should follow a strict Product Strategy that thoroughly reviews a new idea before accepting that. Also, organizations should allow employees to brainstorm and bring innovation without supporting cognitive biases.

5. Skipping A Few Steps Of the Development Process

If the organization is taking an Agile approach to SDLC, the process involves the stages of planning, Analyzing, Designing, Implementation, Testing& Integration, and Maintenance. As an Agilist, the Project Manager should make the teams of Develops and Testers follow the right SDLC approach. Frequently, the development team tends to skip a few steps in the SDLC process to accelerate the progress. These types of mistakes can lead to production downtime.  That is why it’s a must not to skip any SDLC step.

The Right Approach:

Organizations must give the Product Owner responsibilities of a Product Manager with knowledge in Behavioural Economics, Customer Development, Business Analytics, and Technology Innovation. Also, the Product Owner must take Agile Training to learn everything about different Agile Methodologies. The more the CPO focus on Learning, the easier it becomes for him to set an achievable Product Goal for the team to work on. So, Learning, practicing, and growing with time are essential!

Reference

  1. https://fi.co/insight/5-biggest-product-development-mistakes 
  2. https://adaptmethodology.com/product-development-mistakes/


Author

Paula

Is a passionate learner and blogger on Agile, Scrum and Scaling areas. She has been following and practicing these areas for several years and now converting those experiences into useful articles for your continuous learning.