Specializing Generalist

The ideal agile team is made up of specializing generalists – but what does that really mean?  The goal isn’t to prevent functional silos of expertise, it is to allow people to cover for each other.

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Tally the Score – Comparing Products Part 8

After building an understanding of which problems are important to your each customer you want to serve, and rating each competitive product , you’re ready to tally the scores and see how your product compares with your competition.  This tells you if you’re likely to crush it, and if not, lets you know where you should invest later.  This series on comparing products starts here if you need to get caught up.

And now, on to the finale…

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Rating Your Competition – Comparing Products Part 7

At this point in the product comparison series, you know who your customers are, which problems are important to them, and which products compete to solve those problems.  It’s time to score the competing products and see how the solutions your product provides (or will provide) will stack up.  This is the latest in a series on comparing products, jump back to the start of the series if you came here first, but hurry up :).

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Know Your Competition – Comparing Products Part 6

You start with a point of view about what makes a minimum viable product.  When your product launches, it is your customer’s point of view that matters.  You must understand which problems your customers care about solving, and what solutions are available to your customers today.  You need to understand your competition to make informed decisions about your product.  This is the latest in a series on comparing products – jump back to the beginning of the series to catch up, we’ll wait.
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Important Customers – Comparing Products Part 5

A good product is one that solves valuable market problems.  To be successful in the market, a product needs to solve the problems that the right customers are willing to pay to solve.  To know if those customers are willing to pay, you need to understand how they perceive your product relative to alternative solutions.  If you’re new to the series, head back to the intro article on comparing products, and catch up with this article, where we look at pulling together the information about which customers are important.
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