Product discovery with tiny teams: Divinia Knowles on how a US guru transformed her firm's approach to research and development.

AuthorKnowles, Divinia
PositionGENY

Last year we invited Marty Cagan, a partner at the Silicon Valley Product Group, to run a course for all our development teams at Mind Candy, the company that created the popular online game Moshi Monsters. This changed our business quite a bit. Cagan, who is a product management expert, talked to all of our product people--including artists and developers--and senior members of the management team.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

HE TAUGHT US all about how products can be developed in this new digital age, based on the idea that you can spin them out using really tiny teams that are incredibly agile because they're simply sitting there producing prototype after prototype. He also explained the value of user testing--ie, how you determine whether or not your concepts can be successful by bringing customers into the process at a relatively early stage.

CAGAN SAYS THAT PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT TEAMS at the Silicon valley Product Group ask the management for "a little time to investigate the solution and validate that with customers to ensure it has the necessary value and usability, with engineers to ensure its feasibility and with other stakeholders to ensure that it's viable for our business. Once we have come up with a solution that works for the business, we can make an informed and highly confident statement about when we could deliver this and what type of result we can expect. We can also decide whether it's...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT