Further to Home page, I am a software development professional that has been lucky to have a diverse career history across regulated industries (financial services, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications) and consumer focused start-ups (fashion, ecommerce, retail).
On first impressions these industries might seem to have nothing in common. You might expect a regulated industry to be less concerned about a fast moving marketplace and buying trends. You might also expect the consumer focused sectors to be less concerned with regulation.
This is true to a degree, however software and services supplied to regulated markets tend to be rich in the gamut of use cases they need to deliver and with a good user experience. That playing in a regulated market does not mean that they are not highly competitive. The need to innovate to achieve an edge and deliver great user value is there. That the development effort tends to be high, means that making the right decisions about where to invest, which solutions to provide and how is especially important.
On the other hand, data privacy and security of ecommerce processing and consumer protection present analogous regulatory constraints even in the consumer space.
Across my career I have developed certain insights that are common across all sectors and in some cases they may seem like obvious truisms, but the key is how to achieve objectives with best practice knowing this.
Creating and maintaining a good team culture I would say is the most important ingredient for success. It is clear that an team with potential but without ‘star players’ can still achieve more success with a good team culture and the opposite is true. I enjoy bringing the recipe for that and influence to shape such productive environments.
Whether working with a new or an established team, the importance of not wasting development bandwidth is crucial and product people have a large part to play on this. Ensuring that the right customer / market problem and needs are addressed, to the deliver the best outcomes, is key (In fact I believe it is so important, and an unsatisfied opportunity that I founded a start-up to address this). That does not mean, every niche, every problem and every need. They best fit needs to be driven by evidence, tested hypotheses and analysis. Not every possible solution has the same merits. Grounding the ‘rationale for development’ in evidence transparently and involve a cross-functional team in building that narrative of ‘why this matters’ is also a strong motivation factor for any team, as is the participation in this. To an extent a Product Owner can be seen as a servant / leader to the collective team for the product value dimension just as a Scrum Master is for operational aspects.
The ideation process of optimally getting that fit fascinates me as, together with the team culture aspect, it has a strong bearing on whether a successful outcome is delivered. This is why addressing that aspect thoroughly and experientially is part of my ethos for product development.