Steering Product Success through Lean Startup

Written By Allison Pollard

Photo by davispuh

I love to read. Everyday I'm reading blogs, monthly I'm reading certain magazines, and interspersed throughout the year I'm reading books. I love learning new things and finding connections between ideas, and I'm often imagining how I might apply what I'm learning. 

I also know that reading a book alone might not be enough to know how to use the ideas or get started. When I'm doing my job well as a consultant, I act as the Cliff’s Notes version or quick reference guide for ideas so my clients don't have to read ALL THE THINGS and help them act on them. 

My friend Ty and I created a class to help folks enhance their product management techniques based on Lean Startup and the Strategyzer series. We led it for a group of R&D/incubation product leaders, and it was such a great experience that we created a one-hour version to share at meetups.

We presented this topic recently at the Tampa Bay Agile Product Owners group, and you can watch the recording below:

Regardless of your organization’s size, creating a new product or enhancing an existing product is risky. Product Owners and teams work under conditions of extreme uncertainty to deliver value to customers. Using the Lean Startup approach, you can create order (not chaos) by using tools to validate your product vision continuously.

Allison Pollard

Allison Pollard is a coach, consultant, and trainer who brings the power of relationship systems intelligence to go beyond tasks, roles, and frameworks to create energy for change. She engages with people and teams in a down-to-earth way to build trust and listen for signals to help them learn more and improve. Allison focuses on creating alignment and connection for people to solve business problems together. Her experience includes working with teams and leaders in energy, retail, financial, real estate, and transportation industries to help improve their project/product delivery and culture. Allison currently volunteers as program director for Women in Agile’s mentorship program. Her agile community focus is championing new voices and amplifying women as mentors and sponsors for the next generation of leaders. Allison earned her bachelor’s degrees in computer science, mathematics, and English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC), a foodie, and proud glasses wearer. Allison is a prolific speaker at professional groups and international conferences, including Scrum Gatherings and the Agile Alliance Agile20xx conferences. Allison is co-owner of Helping Improve LLC.

http://www.allisonpollard.com
Previous

Don’t Expect Change to Happen in the First Conversation
Next

There is more than one way to “Do” Innovation