Product Development today has various challenges where startups and enterprises alike have to move quicker and plan resources carefully for consumers (users) to be able to gain market traction and stay relevant with competitors constantly evolving.
Very often, product releases are managed by product managers gathering requirements on behalf of the customer within an organisation. He begins with a high-level product requirement and speaks with various stakeholders like sales, marketing, operations, finance to map business constraints and heads over to engineering to start building. This skips over valuable insights gained by engaging users, design teams and answering the hard questions of “nice to haves” vs “must haves”.
I’ll like to share an approach that was used in two environments with success to bring products to market with a focus on users while considering business conditions and constraints.
As a product owner in an enterprise setting tasked with crafting a mobile strategy and product roadmap or a product owner in a startup tasked with overhauling a legacy system for a more efficient business platform, I’ll compare the two distinct environments and offer insights into how a team can begin to understand and shape a company’s direction towards user-centered design.
It involves thinking with users in mind, building with agile techniques and measuring to help iterate towards meaningful product releases. Often, this results in changes to an organisation that also requires coaching and charting a path for the people who are affected.
