Some companies and start-ups struggle to deliver new products and features on time.
Some take too long to innovate on their products. Their MVPs are poorly defined, and they simply don’t know how to focus on the things that will make their business successful.
Some overburden their teams. They are overworked and stressed which leads to poor quality and cutting corners.
Many organizations waste a good portion of their development capacity on inefficient delivery or initiatives that won’t move the needle.
- Do you complete everything you set out to each sprint, month, or quarter?
- Are you confident your currently defined MVP is the true MVP?
- Are you certain your delivery team is building the right things given all your competing priorities?
- Are product development or engineering decisions made with transparency to the business?
- Do you find time to prioritize maintenance, technical debt, or product innovation?
- Does your organization try to do too much in too little time, yet fail to deliver much of anything on time or with quality?
Start-ups and technology companies should be constantly improving their product development and delivery practices. If you haven’t already, the organization and team should collaboratively establish best practices, standards, and processes for how work gets done. Not bureaucracy, but collaboration with everyone having a voice.
Next, we should measure our team’s performance and use feedback loops to maintain and improve these policies. Continuous improvement- be that of yourself, your team, or your company- is something that requires continued attention in order to get to the next level.
Overburdened teams often feel stuck and that improvement is impossible.
If you’ve been in this situation, it can be nerve-wracking, stressful, and you find you make mistakes because you’re overwhelmed. Once in a situation like this, it can be difficult to know how to stabilize it. Two things to consider:
- Is your team working efficiently? Have you made continuous improvements to your team’s standards and best practices to improve? If not, should you be spending that additional 10% of your 110% effort to make your team more efficient?
- Can you make a strong case as to why your team needs more resources?
For each 10% efficiency gain you achieve
X For every 10 people on your team
= Increased capacity equivalent to +1 person
Remember, it’s not about resources, it’s about resourcefulness.