Today, Adam Wells with GSTVC shares with us how the GST team implements best practices in Product Development.
Improving Product Development: Version Strategy (Part 1)
So you're on track and have great feedback from paying customers. You're now the proud recipient of one of "the good problems to have:" Supporting Multiple Versions.
While your V1 or V2 is going smashingly, your R&D group is working away at V3. You have so much in the works, yet your production version still needs support. So how do you ensure that your teams are organized in the best way to ensure productivity for your R&D investment?
At this point in the game many are tempted to bring in outside staff augmentation and choose the cheapest option thinking that their internal senior resources will be able to direct them to success.
The problem with this approach however is that the highest paid and most productive assets are now fractured and distracted, relegated to ad hoc urgencies and putting out fires. Pretty soon the core engine of development will grind to a slow crawl and work satisfaction for your valued employees will start to tank.
The perceived discount in base rate staff augmentation ended up missing roadmap milestones and thus customer adoption sales targets, even leading to churn. These delays in addition to senior R&D personnel reduction in productivity have cost the company $100,000+ in such a short amount of time.
Wow-that got out of hand quickly...how can this be averted? Is strategy to blame or is it just tactics that need to be improved? The answer is Yes.
...to be continued...
As always, we love hearing from you as to what you're experiencing as you drive growth for your company; please reach out below.
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