Executive Engagement | Silicon Valley Product Group

I don't think there is enough clear thinking in product delivery around executive engagement, so this article caught my eye right away. I found this list of Interaction Principles brilliant. This frames up, with a bit of detail, how these different roles should and can work together to create great solutions. As a taste, here are the items.

Lead With Context Not Control, Outcomes not Output, Knowing What You Can’t Know, Data Beats Opinions, High-Integrity Commitments, The Main Thing, Missionaries not Mercenaries, Transparency, You Are Not The Customer, Fix The Team First, Empowered Engineers, Ideas vs. Directives, Prototype vs. Product, Minimize Surprises, and No Silver Bullets.

Go to the article to read up on each one of those. I should probably put this on a reminder to re-read every couple of months. "Ideas vs Directives" is one that I get tripped up on with some regularity.

I don't agree with all of Cagan's viewpoints on agile delivery, notable his negative view on SaFE, but his spirit is always spot on and this one frames up a sticky topic so well.