All this Agile & Product buzzword… what are we talking about and is it worth it?

6 min readNov 14, 2023

I regularly meet people feeling beein in a noisy/useless environment full of people using (buzz)words like “Business Agility”, “software agile development”, “Product management”, “Product Mindset”… and to be honest, I do understand their feeling.

I’m Pierre-Julien Cazaux and as a consultant for Tasmane, I’m used to answer complex, deep and high-level questions for large organziations. So I usualy answer questions like “Why transitioning to the “Product Mindset” Represents a Mourning for Managers?” , “What paths do leaders take in an organization transitioning to a product mindset?”, but while I do this, I still have legitimate questions from people facing different but as complex matters that do not have a clue of what I’m talking about… This article wants to reconciliate our thought by providing a big and compréhensive picture on these topics.

I hope you will enjoy this read and please tell me as soon as you find something fuzzy or too jargonous, I’ll try to be even more pedagogic.

First, what is the target?

In accelerating and more-and-more complex environement, running businesses can be challenging and every decision or “go to market” might appear like taking a path to great success or definive and painfull faillure… Then you start to seek for solutions and defines the goal as “Business Agility” :

An enterprise that is aware of the complexity of its surroundings and its composition, that questions itself regularly, makes fast decisions, reconfigures quickly, tests/experiments, embeds change in its DNA, and gives itself the means to venture forward in an uncertain world.

As I worked on this goal with a lot of teams, managers and directors, let’s share what are the 7 fondamental abilities we identified to reach the target.

Ability to build a long-term vision, adjust it regularly, and make these adjustments quickly operational. Ability to engage managers and employees around this vision.
Ability to know and understand customers, partners, stakeholders, collaborate with them, and organize the entire value proposition around them. Ability to continuously and rapidly create value for them.
Ability to explore, continuously challenge oneself, and learn from one’s actions and mistakes, both in what is done and how it is done.
Ability to integrate talents, quickly build and reconfigure internal skills, and promote the development of future expertise.
Ability to question your own values and culture, the ability to evolve this culture towards agility, and do so in a co-constructive manner with employees.
Ability to make quick decisions despite the unknown, and accept and manage risk.
Ability to care about the well-being of employees and their working environment.

Easy to say ! But it sounds like a complex question according to the size of your company… Does anyone have a framework that can help me reach this “Business Agility”? Yes, more than one in fact. A lot of different proposition appeard since the last ~25 years… Are the “Agile Methodologies” or “Agile Frameworks” the solution? Lets have a closer look at this.

Agile approach

As a mater of facts, most of the time when you seek for information about “agility”, you will find materials for “Agile software development”. Since you cannot deny that future successfull companies are the one that “include IT consideration as the a part of the frame to execute strong strategies and not as a side asset”, then this looks like a good start.

This approach of agility taken from “the sofware side” is due to a old and hudge pain in this IT industry based on history. At it’s begining, sofware enginneering took the most robust industry as a model: the building construction! But what less flexible than a building made of concrete? The need to solve this rigidity issue lead to the emergence of many frameworks, and a bunch of them are quite efficient if they are appliyed with the spirit and not like a methodology.

So, with an Agile approach do I reach the Business Agility? No.

Product Mindset

The product Minset is a complementary layer to reach “Business Agility”. It package all the tools, organisation and posture guidelines for team members, and teams each other, to:

focus on the most interessting things to do, at the right time, with motivated teams aligned on clear objectives. Let’s call this “Product Mangement”
breaked-down your subjects into distinct products and services according to an “offer logic”, which can be articulated each other, while at the same time creating opportunities and always in a way to create an flexible environnement you can manage like “lego bricks” rather than burriing yourself in god damn monoliths. Let’s call this “Product Architecture”
Build everything you do to be able to bring it to the market as fast as possible without confusing speed with haste. This implies and strong effort on quality, monitoring and industrialiszation of your delivery processes.

So, with a product mindset do I reach the Business Agility? No.

Agile Approach + Product Mindset = Business Agility ?

As you may have understand, the product mindset and agility are distinct approaches. They can be implemented independently of each other. However, the benefits of the product mode are multiplied when it is implemented with an agile approach.

With an agile approach, your “Product Management” will :

Give a better sense of listening to stakeholders because their issues are resolved more quickly.
Ease the communication and the appropriation of changes.
Ease the impact measurement since changes are more specific.

With an agile approach, your “Product Architecture” will :

be easier to control since small changes are made
Reduce the risk of projects overlapping

With an agile approach, your “Product Delivery“ will :

Provide a better time-to-maket predictibility (less risk of bypassing problems, regulatory changes, etc.).
Provide a value optimization: we develop just what’s needed, and readjust along the way.
Better guarantee of meeting commitments, as cycles are short and therefore reliable

So, if I both have a product Mindset in an Agile Approach, do I reach the Business Agility?

Well… No.

The complete transformation will only succeed if everyone in the organization understood this subject as a real and lasting transformation of operating methods and culture, with the pitfalls (resistance to change) and key success factors (including both top-level management and HRs function support, sustained team coaching).

Transformation implies steering and operational support, as well as benevolent and sustained management support in order to face both individual and collective risk-taking. Alignment with the HR vision (training, understanding of the mission) as well as alignment with managerial functions (real decision-making mandate, willingness to take responsibility, acceptance of direct contact between teams and users, etc.) is essential.

Convincing and helping organization to thrive toward this “business agility” is part of the Tasmane DNA and this may leds you to meet me or one of my teammate. If you need a hand to manage such topics, or if the subject moves you as much as it moves me, please contact us, we will be please to get in touch.

Wrap-up

Product mindset and agility are distinct approaches. They can be implemented independently of each other.
The benefits of product mindset are multiplied when implemented with an agile approach.
Product mindset enables you to break down your offer into distinct products and services, which can be articulated with one another, while at the same time creating opportunities.
The success of such approaches depends on understanding and a collective effort at all levels: from operations to top and middle management, from HR to IT.