The Velocity Paradox: Why Focusing on Output Can Compromise Value Creation
In today’s fast-paced business environment, companies often prioritize output over outcomes. But is this approach truly effective? Accelerating velocity doesn’t necessarily mean creating more value. In fact, an extreme focus on the present can compromise future opportunities, leaving you vulnerable to competition.
Understanding Your Current Reality
To strike a balance between velocity and long-term planning, it’s essential to reflect on your current reality. Ask yourself:
- Do teams receive output or outcome roadmaps?
- Does the product strategy focus on short-term or long-term goals?
- What defines success: increasing velocity or maximizing outcome?
- Do teams need to define and conquer or can they focus on one goal at a time?
- Are teams encouraged to create more features or run more experiments?
The Three Ways of Working
There are three common ways of working: velocity-driven, research-driven, and value-driven. Let’s consider a team of seven people: five software engineers, a product manager, and a product designer.
Velocity-Driven
In this approach, teams focus excessively on creating more features, with 90% of their attention on delivery and 10% on discovery. While this may lead to efficient delivery, it can compromise the future.
Research-Driven
On the other extreme, teams focus on the future, ignoring velocity and committing to delivery. This approach can lead to unsatisfactory results and mistrust from management.
Value-Driven
The most sustainable way of working is value-driven, which balances the present and future. This approach requires a dual-track approach, where part of the team works on the future (70%) and the present (30%), while the other part works on the present (70%) and the future (30%).
Getting Support from Management
Becoming a value-driven team requires support from management. To get them on board, create a report comparing output vs. outcome over the last six months and share the analysis with them. This may help identify that many features are never used and the value created is lower than expected.
Key Takeaways
- Increasing velocity doesn’t necessarily mean maximizing value.
- An extreme focus on the present will compromise future opportunities.
- Balancing the present and future within teams enables creating value today while discovering what matters tomorrow.
- Help management see reality and offer a hand to transform it.
By adopting a value-driven approach, teams can create the present while paving the way for the future. It’s time to shift the focus from output to outcomes and unlock true value creation.