You’d be terrified to ride in a car with no driver–and that’s how your tech team feels if there’s no clear product direction!
With two clients in the last week alone, I’ve found there’s essentially no one deciding what to do with their software. That isn’t to say there’s a lack of ideas: engineers are peppered with requests all day for every kind of customer demand and product improvement. But they’re left to their own devices when determining what to do; there’s no effective product manager there to buffer, prioritise, and filter requests. Notice I said “effective”--just having the job filled doesn’t mean anyone is doing the work (one client said “my PM is too busy to prioritise this for me”--busy with what??) Left in the lurch like this, software teams either withdraw and do little or nothing, or try to guess the right priority, and get pilloried when they get it wrong. If this sounds like you, stop right now and get a working product process in place–you may be driving at top speed off the cliff!
This first appeared in my weekly Squirrel Squadron email, which goes out every Monday, and was originally posted on 13th June 2022. To get my provocative thoughts and tips direct to your inbox first, sign up here: https://squirrelsquadron.com/