TBC 4: The Process for Products
February 20, 2015 § 3 Comments
In this series I have been building a case that Transforming the Bay with Christ (TBC) should consider reframing itself as a startup building a platform for governance. In this, our final installment, I will discuss the process necessary to build such a product.
One of the key insights about entrepreneurship in the last decade is that a startup is not just a small version of a established business. Rather, a startup is an organization formed to search for a business model, rather than execute one.
In particular, this implies that startups should be designed to maximize learning by exploiting surprises. This is the exact opposite of a traditional business, which attempts to increase predictability by avoiding surprises.
To get the optimal structure, we need to be clear on:
- Which things we need to learn (the problem)
- How we are going to learn them (the process)
- Who will own the learning (the people)
- What will prove we have learned the right lessons (the product)
Poppendiecks on Lean Software Development
November 13, 2007 § Leave a comment
Thomas and Mary Poppendieck are to Lean Product Development (for Software) what Charles and Ray Eames are to design. LPD can be considered the project management aspect of Agile, to complement the software engineering practices of, e.g., Behavior-Driven Development. Some of my favorite essays from their website are: