Actuation Consulting, Take Charge Product Management, The Study of Product Team Performance

What Makes High Performance Product Teams Successful?

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For the last three years we have been exploring the factors that differentiate high performance product teams from the rest of the pack. The process begins with a survey.  We then conduct regression analysis on the data and share our findings in The Study of Product Team Performance.

About the Co-Authors

When I say we, I am referring to the co-authors of this annual study. They include:

  • David Heidt, Principal, Enterprise Agility and former President of IIBA Chicagoland
  • Matt Jackson, President, Jackson Consulting
  • Ron Lichty, Principal, Ron Lichty Consulting and author of Managing the Unmanageable
  • Gary Pickens, VP and Chief Research Officer at Truven Healthcare Analytics

 

Valuable Insights Into Product Team Performance

The resulting white paper shares valuable insights into why some product teams thrive – while others struggle. In this year’s white paper we shed light on several factors including:

  • Product team culture – why it matters and five elements that are essential to making sure the culture is fully optimized.
  • The product team’s relationship with sales – the health of this relationship is dictated by effectively managing two threads.
  • The sales cycle – product teams frequently underestimate the importance of understanding the sales cycle to their detriment.
  • A project manager’s (or a scrum master’s) relationship with the product manager has a material impact on high performance product teams. We explain why.
  • A strong marketing (or product marketing) relationship with the product team is important. How marketing is integrated into the team’s activities has a bearing on high performance.

There is much more information available on what differentiates high performance product teams. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Additional Insights

We also share trend information. For instance, product development methodology adoption rates for Agile, Waterfall, blended and Kanban.  We have been trending this data over the last three years and a very interesting pattern has emerged. It has implications for how these methodologies are likely to evolve going forward. We also look at which of these methods favorably impact a product’s profitability and how organizations are using return on investment (ROI) – or not using it as the case may be.

This Year’s Promotional Partners

I want to acknowledge the partners who help us distribute the survey and the results. Our thanks to the following groups for their support with this years study.

  • Boston Product Management Association (BPMA)
  •  Chicago Product Management Association (ChiPMA)
  • Orange County Product Managers
  • PDMA Chicagoland
  • Planbox

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