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What Does Agile Mean to You and How Do You Deal with the Process?

Many people ask Product Managers a variety of questions pertaining to their role in the business and technological world. Due to the vast differences between one Product Manager to another, the answers may come in varying responses. One such question would be: “What does agile mean to you and how do you deal with the process?”

Here at Product Gym, we had a few of our instructors and coaches answer the question.

Product Manager A

Agile at its heart is the spirit of making small calculated moves while keeping an eye on the success of each effort, as well as changes in the market landscape, all feeding into the next small calculated move. I prefer to operate a number of cadences in order to remain flexible while keeping the drum beating to an overall vision for where the product is headed.

When it comes to development, I’ve had the best experience with 2-week sprints, but I like to invite the engineers to dictate the cycle pace they prefer. At the top of each sprint, we discuss the goals for development and ratify any concerns in terms of dependencies and blockages, daily or alternating-day statuses via standup or slack, and a team retrospective and planning process. This dev cycle fits well into a quarterly roadmap update cycle with monthly adjustments — I prefer to have a full year themed while clarifying the coming quarter, so adjustments to the overall direction can be made and communicated.

Product Manager B

Knowing that our customers’ needs evolve and that we need to stay relevant with our customers, I am mindful that we need to adjust accordingly. Our agile methodology permits us to adapt, pivot and iterate more quickly. We are continuously gathering feedback from our customers to get insights and make needed adjustments throughout.