Each year Actuation Consulting conducts a global study of product team performance. This will be the third year we have conducted our study. As I write this, we are putting the finishing touches on the 2014 white paper. The goal of our research is to learn the drivers of, and impediments to, high performance on […]

For the last two years we have been asking survey respondents about which product development methods their organizations utilize with an eye toward the trend line. We have found that survey respondents have indicated that Waterfall continues to decline from 18% of responses in 2012 to 13% in 2013. Additionally, responses for Blended (a mix […]

As discussed in last week’s post, product launch continues to a be a consistent pain point for many organizations. Based upon the responses from our 2013 Study of Product Team Performance there appears to be five areas in particular that product teams would fix – IF they were empowered to do so.  When we asked the question […]

Since 2012 we have been investigating the various aspects that enable product teams to achieve high performance. Each year product launch is consistently cited as a problem area. There are several reasons why this area is so problematic for a wide variety of organizations. For instance, most respondents (63%) say they do not have a […]

Methods Used for Product Development Our market research in 2013 illustrates that Blended (one that incorporates some waterfall and some Agile) is chosen most often (43%) by our survey respondents as the methods used for product development to develop products, regardless of company size. The next most popular choice is Agile (30%). Waterfall is a far […]

Interestingly, this year’s Study of Product Team Performance illustrates a direct correlation between high performance and how well the role of the product manager is defined. When the role is well defined, product managers are positioned to lead the creation of value throughout a product’s lifecycle. Last year’s study illustrated that product managers and product […]

For two years in a row, the importance of onboarding product team members efficiently has emerged as a key theme in the regression analysis derived from our annual Study of Product Team Performance. Effectively onboarding talent is highly correlated to high performance on the product team. Seventy five percent of responding organizations underestimate the importance […]

Companies often spend millions of dollars on product development efforts and carefully monitor and control the entire process only to treat the product launch process as an afterthought. It is disheartening for product teams to watch their organizations fumble at the goal line. Organizations that do separate the product development process from the product launch […]

Aligned Strategies? Consistent with last year’s findings in the 2012 Study of Product Team Performance, the importance of having a corporate strategy that the product team can link to and align with remains a statistically significant indicator of a product team’s ability to achieve high performance. If the executive team has not constructed, communicated, or […]

In this year’s Study of Product Team Performance we asked “what product team member had the most influence with the executive team?” The responses were overwhelming tilted in the direction of one role – product management. This included both the product manager and the product owner as depicted below. What Role on the Product Team […]