Issue: To get out a minimum viable product or sales plan quickly, it skimps on scoping out just what the product or plan should accomplish, accepting compromises that are often at the expense of success

Solution: The best solution is to combine agile with “working backwards”

I’m thrilled to share my experiences working in different environments Corporate and Start-up using Agile in business processes even in Pandemic.

Agile has spread far beyond its product or service development for a company or start-up is developing looking to move quickly. The solution is to develop a prototype, or MVP (minimum viable product), if it gets traction, then the team can quickly iterate to create an even better product. It’s quite common to hear about the agile approach to budgeting, talent management, or sales management…

To get out a minimum viable product or sales plan quickly, it skimps on scoping out just what the product or plan should accomplish. In my experience it takes two kinds of compromises:

1. Rather than take the time and to develop a new capability or selling approach, it goes with the skills and competencies it currently has.
2. They accept their existing constraints and relationship, which automatically limits the potential for a high-growth offer or new stakeholders

In both cases, develop a new product or sales plan it’s difficult simply because customers can’t respond to a hypothetical product or sales plan. Working backwards approach means all about planning.

This approach emerged in 2004 Amazon’s e-commerce strategies had proven successful, and the company was aggressively seeking new opportunities with a large potential market. Rather than jumping into developing a plausible product — what an agile mindset might encourage — the company preached to go slow to go fast, rather than moving quickly into coding without clearly defining the customer problem and an elegant product solution.

The working backwards approach requires a fully realized vision from what it thinks will delight customers

The fundamental problem with an agile approach, as many companies use it, is that its relentless pace biases developers or salespeople.

They curtail their ambitions: instead of a major breakthrough on products and sales plan, they tend toward only incremental improvements on existing offerings maintaining the same selling approach, starting from past experience without experiment new way of selling. For example, a product development MVP isn’t really viable at all, so customers can’t give real feedback because hasn’t right experience: developers haven’t had time to do their homework and prepare something that’s sustainable, the team tells itself that whatever information they get is still valuable toward some future breakthrough product. developers haven’t had time to do their homework and prepare something that’s sustainable.

But that future rarely comes. Even sales without an accurate and strategic account plan, go and try, throwing the heart over the obstacle but without centring the feeling of the customer that needs empathy, connecting him on a more human level. The best solution, then, is to combine agile with something like working backwards, using careful planning and preparation.

Working backwards means putting a clear roadmap: roadmaps reflect Agile Level of adequacy.  The roadmap is where business and technology meet. By viewing the roadmap, you can easily detect whether the Agile transformation stopped at the team level or went further.

The pandemic transformed the marketing and sales landscape, it also dramatically altered behaviour-both for consumer and corporate, forcing marketers and sales manager to adapt to new trends and rethink tried-and-true assumptions.

As with all trying experiences, there are lessons to take away:

1. We need to lead with empathy and connect with people on a more human level, sharing experiences, moments and stories without underestimating details, often dropped in an agile approach.
2. Great creativity has always leaned on truth and shared experience. Right now, there is more of that than ever.

I’m not arguing that companies should throw the agile approach out the window, after all, most evolutions involve only incremental changes. It can benefit from agile as well, once it has done the kind of advanced work involved with the working backwards approach.

To address the new approach any leader who is assuming a role previously held by someone else has to face their predecessor’s legacy, but those who are replacing poor or controversial leaders have a special challenge.

These three strategies will help companies to move on:

1. Acknowledge the contributions of the previous leader. Don’t ignore their contributions or blame them for all of the organization’s challenges.
2. Create space for forgiveness. It will allow people to let go of the past and make room for a new vision and direction.
3. Seek to understand your employees’ experience. Ask them what they want and need going forward. You will have some employees who are supportive of the previous leadership. You don’t automatically become a good leader merely by taking over for a bad one. Ultimately you become a good leader by leading differently and more inclusively.

(friendly provided by Stefania Bistoni – Entrepreneur – Curiosity and Successful Maker)