Product development can be an expensive, time consuming and risky business.
Our success rate at predicting customer value is very low, often as little as 50%. We don't have the money and resource to fully develop the ideas that won't pay back.
Empirically, we know that the larger and longer a project is, the greater the risk of cost overruns, delays and failure to deliver in whole or in part. To reduce the risk we spend a lot of time in analysis and bureaucratic risk mitigation.
While we spend all this time planning, the world changes around us. Our competitors innovate just as we do. Changing market conditions alter our cashflow (and our appetite to invest), new opportunities present themselves (such as complimentary partnerships with other organisations).
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Have a vision that guides you in the right direction and informs your decisions
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Plan a few sprints ahead but no more than that
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Make hypotheses and run experiments to [learn from your customers](Learning from customer feedback.md).
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Do the smallest thing possible to prove your hypotheses (the minimum viable product or MVP)
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Learn from your experiements and be prepared to change direction when things are not working out.
- The Lean Startup by Eric Rees talks about MVP's, building experiments, iterating and pivoting