In Steve Blank's article Tesla And Adobe: Why Continuous Deployment May Mean Continuous Customer Disappointment, he makes some interesting observations around the potential negative market impact of continuous delivery and agile.
The key point that I took away as a Product Manager is not that there are issues with agile development including continuous delivery but that to avoid customer disappointment I should make sure I understand my market and the effect on my business model of moving to a software as a service model or any other model that allows continuous delivery. I should also communicate and be transparent with my customers on what they can and cannot expect, give them options and be clear about what they are.
His lessons learned being:-
His first two points need no comment.
He's also right about point 3 and point 4 but I'd add that in a competitive market where your customer has the choice of a number of apps in the market, all things being equal I hypothesize that the more frequently updated app (providing the upgrade is low-friction for the user) incremently improving capability (and highlighting the new toys on first use) will do better than a product that waits to release all the same features at some point in the future in one big bang. Even if they make a loud noise. Sounds like an interesting experiment.
Point 5, 6 and 7 Telsa turning off capabilities that were built in and paid for and customers expecting upgrades at no cost highlight Mr Blank's point that customers require education when you move to these new models and you should test the market first, especially if you're creating a new business model in a market.
Adobe perceived overshooting of the needs of it's low end customers, the Innovators Dilema trap is a classic one and Adobe are attempting to address it releasing consumer products such as Lightroom which provide slightly above good enough capabilities at lower cost. Whether they've got the balance right time will tell.
Adobe's move to a subscription model along with that of Mindjet, the makers of Mind Manager (who had to reverse their decision to only provide a subscription service after their user community revolted) demonstrates the challenge of changing your business model without understanding your customer base and providing valued alternatives.
All of the above are less about continuous delivery and agile delivery capabilities and are more about understanding your market and having a strategy on how you'll destroy your own market before your competitor does.
Any business that has the ability to ship frequent high quality product has greater market options to:- * Have faster market feedback from market experimentation and adapt accordingly * Outpace a competitor * Pivot to take advantage of new market * Reduce risk impact by providing low-friction fast fixes
This doesn't mean a business using agile methods has to take advantage of all of these options but it can. It can still choose to bundle features in to releases should it's market or part of it's market be happier with this model, such as enterprise customers not wanting the perceived current risk and effort required to have to upgrade core systems every month.
Even in the enterprise market, one I'm very familiar with, you have the ability with an agile approach to provide your closet customers with early access programs to production quality software for market feedback. Should competitors hit the market with competitive features the agile business is ready to come out fighting.
Steve Blank's points about educating and communicating cleary with customers and being aware of the Innovators Dilema are all worthy points and are not in conflict, in fact are complimentary to the agile ways of working. The ability for the business to have the options to experiment with fast feedback, adapt and fix fast allows us better serve our customers in whatever business model we decide is best for our market.
The key point that I took away as a Product Manager is not that there are issues with agile development including continuous delivery but that to avoid customer disappointment I should make sure I understand my market and the effect on my business model of moving to a software as a service model or any other model that allows continuous delivery. I should also communicate and be transparent with my customers on what they can and cannot expect, give them options and be clear about what they are.
His lessons learned being:-
- Continuous Delivery/Deployment is a major engineering advance
- It enables new business models
- Customers don’t care about your business model, just its effect on them
- While irrational, inefficient and illogical, people like shiny new toys
- Subscription revenue models versus new purchases require consumer education
- If your subscription revenue model “fires” a portion of your customers, it may enable new competitors
- Companies need to clearly communicate customer entitlements to future features
His first two points need no comment.
He's also right about point 3 and point 4 but I'd add that in a competitive market where your customer has the choice of a number of apps in the market, all things being equal I hypothesize that the more frequently updated app (providing the upgrade is low-friction for the user) incremently improving capability (and highlighting the new toys on first use) will do better than a product that waits to release all the same features at some point in the future in one big bang. Even if they make a loud noise. Sounds like an interesting experiment.
Point 5, 6 and 7 Telsa turning off capabilities that were built in and paid for and customers expecting upgrades at no cost highlight Mr Blank's point that customers require education when you move to these new models and you should test the market first, especially if you're creating a new business model in a market.
Adobe perceived overshooting of the needs of it's low end customers, the Innovators Dilema trap is a classic one and Adobe are attempting to address it releasing consumer products such as Lightroom which provide slightly above good enough capabilities at lower cost. Whether they've got the balance right time will tell.
Adobe's move to a subscription model along with that of Mindjet, the makers of Mind Manager (who had to reverse their decision to only provide a subscription service after their user community revolted) demonstrates the challenge of changing your business model without understanding your customer base and providing valued alternatives.
All of the above are less about continuous delivery and agile delivery capabilities and are more about understanding your market and having a strategy on how you'll destroy your own market before your competitor does.
Any business that has the ability to ship frequent high quality product has greater market options to:- * Have faster market feedback from market experimentation and adapt accordingly * Outpace a competitor * Pivot to take advantage of new market * Reduce risk impact by providing low-friction fast fixes
This doesn't mean a business using agile methods has to take advantage of all of these options but it can. It can still choose to bundle features in to releases should it's market or part of it's market be happier with this model, such as enterprise customers not wanting the perceived current risk and effort required to have to upgrade core systems every month.
Even in the enterprise market, one I'm very familiar with, you have the ability with an agile approach to provide your closet customers with early access programs to production quality software for market feedback. Should competitors hit the market with competitive features the agile business is ready to come out fighting.
Steve Blank's points about educating and communicating cleary with customers and being aware of the Innovators Dilema are all worthy points and are not in conflict, in fact are complimentary to the agile ways of working. The ability for the business to have the options to experiment with fast feedback, adapt and fix fast allows us better serve our customers in whatever business model we decide is best for our market.