Accelerate Chapter 8 Discussion Points

In chapter 8 of Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations, we discuss product development:

• It is important to take an experimental approach to product development. This includes:
• Building and validating prototypes from the beginning
• Working in small batches
• Evolving or "pivoting" products and the business models behind them early and often
• Lean product development practices
• Four capabilities of a Lean approach to product development:
• Work in small batches
• Slice up features into small batches that can be completed in less than a week and released frequently, including the use of MVPs
• Make flow of work visible
• Teams have a good understanding and visibility of the flow of work from the business all the way through to customers
• Gather & implement customer feedback
• Actively and regularly seek customer feedback and incorporate this feedback
• Team experimentation
• Teams have the authority to create and change specifications without requiring approval
• Research over the years shows that software delivery performance predicts Lean product management practices
• Improving your software delivery effectiveness will improve your ability to work in small batches and incorporate customer feedback along the way
• Gathering customer feedback includes multiple practices:
• Regularly collecting customer satisfaction metrics
• Actively seeking customer insights on the quality of products and features
• Using this feedback to inform the design of products and features
• The extent to which teams actually have authority to respond to this feedback is also important
• Team experimentation
• One of the points of Agile development is to seek input from customers throughout the delivery process, including early stages
• If a team isn't allowed to change specifications or requirements without outside authorization, then their ability to innovate is sharply inhibited
• To be effective, experimentation should be combined with:
• Working in small batches
• Making the flow of work through the delivery process visible to everyone
• Incorporating customer feedback into the design of products
• This ensures that your teams: 
• Are making well-reasoned, informed choices
• Are making changes based on feedback
• Informed decisions are communicated throughout the organization
• Effective product management drives performance
• Lean product management practices positively impact software delivery performance
• Software delivery performance drives Lean product management practices
• This is a reciprocal model, or a virtuous cycle
• These two things together drive better outcomes for your organization
• The ability to work in small batches is especially important because it enables teams to integrate user research into product development and delivery
• The ability to take an experimental approach to product development is highly correlated with the technical practices that contribute to continuous delivery