Comments on: Agile Development and the Customer Development Process

By: jual_rumah

jual_rumah — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 06:57:47 +0000

As a marketer I find a few new term in this post. I think I need more study and real clue.

By: jual_rumah

jual_rumah — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:57:47 +0000

As a marketer I find a few new term in this post. I think I need more study and real clue.

By: Promotional Products

Promotional Products — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 04:30:51 +0000

Sounds like a great information session. I've found that I have great customer development at trade shows and conventions. I meet so many different people from potential customers to fellow business owners who are all there to develop our brand and get instant feedback from potential clients, I always seem to have a great time.

By: EricFriedman

EricFriedman — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:43:43 +0000

It was great to hear from both sides of the fence, waterfall development vs.
agile development and know there is a place for both. Online web
application software development seems to benefit from agile development,
but building and planning a construction project is a great example where a
waterfall approach is definitely needed. You can't build a structure in a
piece meal approach.

I think in the physical space you can use this methodology to increase and
make communication much more transparent. This way the engineering team is
working in concert with the the project management team. This is especially
needed in the physical product space because those two jobs are more distant
as time and production plays such as role vs. web apps where the two are
blended.

By: Fred H Schlegel

Fred H Schlegel — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:39:56 +0000

Feature creep is a problem in all product development situations. I've been more directly connected with manufactured product rather than code and so I'm real interested to see how this discussion can transfer. While I've heard the term agile software development before, I hadn't given it the time it might deserve. The lower the cost of adding features the more likely you are going to end up suffering from this problem, so ideas being used to focus software development might be very useful.

By: EricFriedman

EricFriedman — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:52:43 +0000

Thanks Amanda. I think Fraser is doing this monthly so you can make the
next one.

That is a great quote! People don't really know the solution they need
until it presents itself. People will "featurize" services into oblivion
and at some point you have to stop changing things for the loudest users and
start innovating for the silent majority.

By: amanda peyton

amanda peyton — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:41:42 +0000

Great write-up Eric. I'm sorry I missed this. One of my favorite quotes related to customer development comes from Henry Ford: “If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said faster horses.” I definitely think you have to listen to your customers, solve their pain, give them what they want, treat them like gold, etc. but sometimes when you try and implement every suggestion you can end up muddying your vision. as you said – “feature creep”.