You will never have enough time or people to do everything you want. We know that focusing on everything prevents you from getting anything done. You need to make hard decisions about what work is most important. Often these decisions will frustrate both your customers and your employees. However, ask yourself this:
Would you rather have an honest conversation about what’s important and make a decision or pretend and have everyone even more frustrated at the end when nothing is done?
To succeed, you need to understand your purpose and the value that you deliver for your customers. You need to make sure what people are working on actually aligns with that purpose. The work throughout the organization must be visible if you want people to make sound business decisions. People often say that this sounds obvious. We agree, it is obvious – but how to do it is often not.
Our Approach
Every organization is different… and there are patterns that we see over and over.
Common Problems
- Too many priorities
- Too many large projects
- No focus
- No time to get the work done
- Invisible work
- Lack of customer engagement
- Avoiding customer feedback
- Working on things that aren’t valuable
Desired Results
- Innovation and exploration of new business opportunities
- Clear decision-makers
- Transparent backlogs
- Customer-aligned purpose
- Focus on the right work
- Faster value delivery
- Transparent business decisions
Customer and product problems are often difficult to tackle because they cross so many departmental and organizational boundaries. Challenges in the product and customer space often feel overwhelming with no clear starting point. We focus on ‘the work’ and help you zoom in on the most important priorities to build from there. Shifting from current challenges to a new, better future is about incremental improvements.
Remember, there is no silver bullet! Start improving, one product at a time.
How We Help
To improve your ability to build products that customers love, we offer a range of training classes and custom workshops. We also provide dedicated coaching for teams and individuals focused on customers & products.
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO®) Training
Take a deep dive into what it means to be a Scrum Product Owner. Learn what the Product Owner does and how their responsibilities differ from and may replace those of a traditional project manager. Experience the process of working through a project request, extracting customer needs, features, and refining those features into small backlog items! Ask tough questions and learn with practical concepts you can apply. Throughout this course, expect to learn in engaging exercises and simulations as a class and in small groups.
Product Accelerator Training Workshops
Teams and organizations are often looking for ways to break through challenges, sharpen their skills, or take things to the next level with agile. Our Accelerator Training Workshops are designed based on these goals. These workshops start with our core Accelerator content, including customer engagement, product management (product ownership), estimation, and product planning. Beyond that foundation, we adapt them to meet your situation & needs. Whether you are looking to align, address challenges, build on your experience, or advance and move forward, our Accelerator Training can help.
Coaching & Consulting
Our hands-on, practical training provides a solid foundation for learning and applying new concepts. There are times when you want help dealing with your specific organizational issues, challenges, and opportunities. For these situations, we offer a variety of coaching & consulting services focused on product management, prioritization, agile, and transparent business decisions. We work directly with teams, ScrumMasters, coaches, Product Owners, Product Managers, stakeholders, management, executives, and other key players involved with customer engagement and product management.
Next Steps
Contact us to set up some time to discuss any of the services listed, ask how we might help you with specific goals or challenges, or even see a live demo of our training, coaching, or consulting! We love tough questions – so ask away!