Speaking to your prospects: a disruptive Agile framework

2022-08-17 23:05:07

On this submit, I’ll current a sturdy and disruptive Agile framework. It’s known as “speak to your prospects” — or, in brief, TTYC.

Quickly I’ll be promoting a 500-page guide with sufficient diagrams to persuade you it’s a framework price making an attempt. In case you are , you may as well contact me for a $50,000 workshop by which I’ll recite platitudes and declaim all the mandatory technical phrases to make it “enterprise-ready”.

For now, bear with me. This weblog submit is all I’ve bought.

TTYC’s core-workflows

The Discuss To Your Prospects framework revolves round speaking to your prospects, an arcane follow lengthy forgotten within the software program trade. Right here’s a move chart that will help you perceive the core workflows of the TTYC framework.

TTYC’s core workflows.

As surprisingly as it might appear, the half about speaking to your prospects is essential for TTYC’s success.

TTYC’s roles and core-metrics

TTYC has two roles: the client and the product developer. The shopper is liable for having issues, and the product developer is liable for delivering options to these issues. In change for the answer, the client will present the product developer with an artefact known as “cash”.

In addition to constructing merchandise folks need, TTYC additionally values this “cash” artefact as a substitute of story factors, cycle-time, and velocity, as different Agile frameworks do.

My expertise within the software program trade tells me that many may even see this abrupt focus shift as an obstacle, and I perceive such complicated ideas might flip some of us off. But, I firmly imagine on this factor known as “cash”, which tends to be a results of transport nice merchandise.

For the parents who like graphs, right here’s an excellent plot of cash over time.

The perfect relationship between the money and time variables

See? It’s all very scientific.

As time passes, cash ought to go up, not down. The upper it goes, and the extra rapidly it goes up, the higher.

TIP: Should you construct one thing folks need, it would naturally go up — offering you’ll be able to promote.

Placing TTYC into follow

In Discuss To Your Prospects, the very first thing it is best to do is speak to your prospects.

It’s best to get them on a name, or meet them for espresso, and hearken to their issues. I do know it might sound counter-intuitive, however for this method to work, you’ll have to truly pay attention.

When allowed, document these conversations to be able to pay attention as many occasions as you want.

Should you’ve bought a recording, incentivize different crew members to hearken to it. Sure, that features the folks writing the software program. Keep in mind: there’s no “software program developer” function in TTYC. There’s solely the client and the product developer.

Right here’s why the listening step is essential: keep in mind what I discussed about that “cash over time metric”? Prospects are those supplying you with the cash, and it appears they’re extra possible to offer it to you if the options you ship really remedy their issues. Listening helps you perceive the client’s issues and, in flip, remedy them.

Implementing an answer

When you’ve listened to the client’s issues comes essentially the most difficult a part of TTYC: implementing an answer.

At this stage, TTYC recommends your crew take into consideration what the client needs to perform and why. If any questions come up in the course of the course of, it is best to return to step one: speaking to your buyer.

Keep in mind: it’s your job to give you the answer, not the client’s. If you return to ask them questions, make sure you’re not merely asking them to design the answer for you. If they may do this, they’d in all probability have executed it already. If they may have executed it however didn’t, it’s as a result of the issue doesn’t matter a lot.

When you’ve bought a grasp of what the answer could be, it is best to go and construct it. There are solely two caveats it is advisable to which it is advisable to listen right here. The primary is that you simply don’t essentially must get the answer proper right away. The second is that constructing it doesn’t essentially imply writing the code.

Let me clarify these two caveats in additional element.

Getting the answer proper

In case you forgot, Discuss To Your Prospects’ core worth is speaking to prospects, which suggests you’ll be able to depend on them to inform you whether or not the proposed answer works.

Over my a few years as a TTYC devotee, I’ve observed that, for some motive, it’s normally higher to ship one thing and ask the client whether or not your answer works than to confabulate amongst builders in two-hour-long conferences. It might be as a result of the client is the one driving the “cash” metric, however I’m unsure.

In different phrases, should you’re unsure, ship it, and ship it rapidly.

An XKCD graph illustrating TTYC’s strategy

If one thing doesn’t work, prospects will let , offering you hearken to them. Should you comply with this strategy, you’ll shorten the “time” metric (keep in mind our “cash vs time” graph).

Constructing it

Prospects will solely present the “cash” artefact should you remedy their issues. Discover I didn’t point out “utilizing Kubernetes” or “microservices” anyplace in that phrase. Have you learnt why? It’s as a result of it doesn’t matter. Discover I didn’t point out code too? That’s as a result of it doesn’t matter both.

Should you develop a no-code prototype in an hour and it solves the client’s issues, they’ll in all probability offer you cash for it. If that occurred, nice! You’ve achieved the purpose of accelerating the “cash” metric and diminishing the “time” it takes to get it.

From right here on, now you can select to scale your answer, enhance it, or discover different issues to unravel.

TIP: As a substitute of fixing imaginary issues, TTYC advocates that it is best to remedy issues that exist or will exist quickly.

To summarise: in TTYC, we advocate that constructing software program which solves the client’s issues is healthier than constructing complicated software program. It might appear absurd, however problem-solving and cash are extremely correlated — far more extremely correlated than cash and Kubernetes.

Placing all of it collectively

The TTYC framework focuses on a disruptive idea known as “speak to your prospects”. Though the framework’s identify has “speak” in it, it actually means “listening”.

This framework has two roles: the product developer and the client. The product developer’s purpose is to amass an artefact known as “cash” and to take action in as little time as potential. The shopper’s function is to unravel their drawback. If the product developer can provide an answer to the shoppers, they’ll in all probability change their “cash” artefacts for the answer.

The revolutionary side of TTYC is acknowledging that fixing the client’s issues is extra necessary than constructing software program or having conferences. Subsequently, it advocates that product builders should speak to prospects as a substitute of spending hours discussing potential options. Moreover, TTYC incentivizes product builders to ship their answer and ask prospects whether or not it really works as a substitute of assuming it does.