1st in the Series: Stakeholder conscious over customer-centric
In a series of publications, Consequential is exploring ideas for new values for going beyond working code in agile product development. You can read our overview and introduction to this series here.
The original agile manifesto and its values pointed out many of the problems with software development that were present at the time. In creating our ideas for new values, we looked to do the same. Tech has eaten the world, and for this to be a positive thing we want to reframe and refocus what we value in its creation and how that can impact what gets put into the world.
In the spirit of our goal, disruption for the common good, we present our ideas for 5 values for the future of agile product development:
- Stakeholder conscious over customer-centric
- Focusing on objectives over measuring output
- Foresight over failing fast
- Collective responsibility over disjointed disempowerment
- Critical questioning over rigid rituals
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
Let’s look in more depth at:
From Customer-Centric to Stakeholder-Conscious
The first principle of agile states: Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
We’re all passionate about the customer. We’re used to thinking about the customer in every interaction. But the need to be engaged with the messiness of politics and address the interconnectedness of the world raises a big question at the heart of product decisions; is the highest priority really only your customer?
More than ever, the customer landscape is complex. The world is networked and globalised. What you create will impact many, not only your customers.
This is why we believe that teams need to shift from being solely customer-centric to stakeholder-conscious. Stakeholders are all of the people and systems who have a vested interest in, or will be impacted by your product. This goes beyond traditional business stakeholders to include groups like the other people in your users’ lives, future generations, and the planet.
We can’t continue to focus only on the customer and let the consequences that fall on other stakeholders be out of scope. All stakeholder needs and interests should be taken into consideration and weighed and balanced alongside your customers.
From our view, one of the biggest things teams may need to learn now is how to openly weigh which stakeholders they are going to benefit more with the product decisions they make.
Some important questions to ask are: How can more open and deliberate decisions about trade-offs benefit everyone? How can expanding our view of who gets considered help with innovation? How can this support the longer-term value of the product?
The future of tech product development
It’s been almost 20 years since The Agile Manifesto was published, and it has changed so many aspects of how we work and create tech products. It’s in the pursuit of Continuous Improvement that we explore here the role of responsibility in agile and ideas for new agile values. We hope our ideas can help to positively shape the next 20 years of agile product development.
~ ~ ~
Consequential does both big ‘I’ and little ‘i’ innovation to change the existing business landscape. This means we focus on large-scale systems change within business and tech, and strategy and innovation within individual organisations to build their businesses and products in more responsible ways.
