Creating an Environment for Product Evolution: The Soft Factors

What kind of environment are you looking for in product development personnel to drive the product and its operation, which is the foundation of your business? McKinsey's Principles of New Business Success: Leap for growth states that when McKinsey "assisted a large company in headhunting CTO talent for a new business When McKinsey helped a large company find a CTO for a new business, more than half of the candidates were rejected before the interview because they were not interested in joining the company as it was.

And, for these individuals, working in an environment where they can operate as part of a new company and use their skills in a management role within an independent entity is more appealing than joining a traditional company as a director or general manager. In other words, for CTOs and similar roles, the working environment is a crucial factor in career decision-making, often outweighing compensation or titles, In other words, the working environment is a very important factor in the decision-making process for people who promote products such as CTOs when considering their careers, rather than compensation or titles.

The working environment is rapidly evolving as we advance our product-based business. Many tools that were previously difficult to implement in large companies due to security concerns have been adopted following the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, some companies emphasize the importance of mission, vision, and values to foster unity and adapt to the rapidly changing IT industry. In this article, we will discuss the working environment, which can be said to be the foundation that supports the evolution of products, and introduce the former by dividing it into software and hardware aspects.

Soft aspects of the working environment

In order to evolve a product, it is essential for product managers, UX designers, and engineers to work together, rather than independently. However, since their job functions are different, it is important to have an environment where they can collaborate with each other beyond their roles.

1. Shared objectives and goals

First, from the perspective of sharing objectives and goals, the mission, vision, and values are shared from a company-wide perspective. Mission refers to the company's social mission and raison d'etre, while vision refers to the future shape of the organization and society. Vision is more concrete and verbalizes what will be realized as a company.

Finally, values are the values and action guidelines that should be shared by all members of the corporate organization. By articulating and sharing these values, we can align our efforts and collaborate effectively to evolve our products, despite our different roles.

Next, there is the product vision, which embodies the company-wide mission, vision, and values from the perspective of product development. This provides a clear summary of the value the product will deliver and the goals it will achieve for the target business and market, aligned with the company’s overall mission. Sharing the product vision strengthens this foundation even further.

Additionally, we are actively implementing the OKR framework not only as a foundational tool but also as a means to set specific annual or quarterly objectives. Not only for the entire company, but also for each product in the product development process, which helps to share goals that transcend job functions.

2. User First

It is important to understand the issues faced by users, think through the ideal situation, and incorporate it into the product, rather than starting with the product that the provider wants to provide for their own reasons.

If market and user issues are not identified through interviews and competitive research, and if hypotheses are not properly tested, development may stall even after planning. Even as an engineer, if you develop a product for which hypothesis testing has not been completed and you are later told to change the policy, it may even be faster to develop the product from scratch again. Therefore, it is crucial to have a hypothesis testing process in place for both planning and development, and to create an environment where teams can review and refine each other's work to produce a high-quality product.

3. Agile

While hypothesis testing should be conducted as thoroughly as possible in advance, the rapid pace of change makes it impossible to anticipate everything fully. High agility is required to continuously understand user needs accurately and to swiftly adapt planning and development processes. Generally, Scrum is introduced as a framework that facilitates collaboration among product managers, UX designers, and engineers through a series of steps including planning, time estimation, prioritization, policy formulation, development, QA, and effectiveness verification.

For more information on agile development, see Agile Development in Large Enterprises: Key Considerations for Implementation. When considering the introduction of agile development, please check this page as well.

Summary

Collaboration among individuals with different roles, such as product managers, UX designers, and engineers, is crucial for product evolution. In order to support this collaboration, the first step is to create an environment in which the company-wide mission, vision, values, product vision, and OKRs can be shared and pursued together.

Additionally, a product only creates value when it is utilized by users. Therefore, we must engage with users, understand their challenges, and rigorously test hypotheses about user value to develop an effective plan. Moreover, achieving the plan requires a high level of agility in today's rapidly changing environment. Only when all three of these factors are in place can product development proceed smoothly and effectively.

References

• マッキンゼー 新規事業成功の原則 Leap for growth