After the Funding: Establish a Product Heartbeat – a Continual Rapid-Fire Release Plan
Story byMark Schiefelbein
Mark is founder of agilician, an Amsterdam-based consultancy that unlocks startup growth. He has advised numerous startups on questions invo(show all)Mark is founder ofagilician, an Amsterdam-based consultancy that unlocks startup growth. He has advised numerous startups on questions involving strategy, positioning, roadmap, process and team. He previously held management positions at startups across Europe including Backbase and Tridion.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
Related Articles
More TNW
About TNW
Establish a Product Heartbeat – a Continual Rapid-Fire Release Plan
Initially the majority of development resources went into the core product. A lot of time is spent researching, investigating and fine tuning, which keeps the code base small and manageable. There are few external deadlines and commitments and the release schedule is opportunity-driven. A multitude of different versions of the product are released in response to specific requests of a hot prospect or a brilliant idea of the founder.
As the company grows, the customer base expands and matures. It will soon become infeasible to maintain customer specific versions, each with their own features, defects, hot fixes and updates. And an expanding development team will create management challenges to keep everybody productive.
It is time to introduce your product heartbeat, a continual rapid-fire release program that will maximize productivity and flexibility. It will provide customers with new features and fixes at short, predictable intervals. It will shield the development team from disruptions by frequently alternating periods of focused production with periods of re-planning and re-prioritization. And it will stave off the temptation of short-notice customer-specific releases. To support the heartbeat you should invest in a solid development infrastructure early on.
After the Funding
In the first post of theseriesI explained thatdecision-making needs to be based on long-term strategy. In a rapidly growing company, the owners need to spend time defining a clear and concise strategy while day-to-day decision making shifts to others based on their roles in the company.
Then I cautioned about therisks of premature expansion of the sales force. Owners must set-up a repeatable sales process first and then expand the sales force.
And last week I talked about the importance of aproduct roadmap to create alignmentbetween expanding departments. The roadmap will help business defining its target market and will provide guidance to technology in setting priorities and allocating resources.
Next week I will explain how to build a team of professionals that is smart and gets things done.
