Continuous Launch — the magic formula for accelerated time-to-market?
Agile development has brought many new terms to product development and MVP is probably the most (over) used of them. You can replace the middle consonant with any letter and you can find a term that is somehow related to accelerated market entries.
So what on earth is Continuous Launch then?
The weakness of MVP thinking is that it’s accelerated product development without product strategy. In MVP development, it is assumed that the real product with production-grade quality will follow and we are only testing the market and customer demand. If there’s no demand, at least we have failed fast and the development efforts will move to the next MVP.
Continuous Launch flips our thinking by envisioning a product goal, the path to get to that goal, and breaking the product development needed into stages where each of them can be addressed through MVP development.
Continuous launch based product strategy is a combination of vision, market development, and first-hand customer feedback that we get with each MVP.
Product development becomes a series of MVPs where the focus of each stage is based on these factors. The outcome is a dynamic, flexible, and customer-oriented product strategy that serves product and business development.
In addition to product strategy, Continuous Launch brings two other meaningful benefits:
- Frequent product improvements.
New product features are introduced in rapid intervals producing customer stickiness, opportunities for value-added pricing and marketing ammunition - The competition cannot keep up.
With frequent product feature launches, the competition will always stay one step behind playing catch up.
Our operating model at Finlabs is built for Continuous Launch:
- While using an agile methodology, we are predominantly fixed price instead of T&M.
- We build partnerships, not quick wins.
- Combining design and technology produces long-term product value.
If all this makes sense, why isn’t everybody doing it?
- All software development companies claim to be agile. But few actually are. You have to be born agile to be able to develop MVPs.
- The majority of software development companies base their business on T&M. This is not often their choice but the client procurement forces them to it to avoid unbearable business risks.
- Most software development companies focus on the published RFP, rather than proactively building a product strategy with their clients.
- You can’t build long term product strategy without product and brand design expertise.
To discover how continuous launch in action can benefit your organization, get in touch with us at Finlabs and we can discuss your challenges and tailor fit a response that utilizes our continuous launch approach.
About the Author:
Timo Korpela is Finlabs U.S. Sales Lead and Executive Advisor. His career has spanned 20+ years where he has been leading technology-driven companies to substantial growth.
Timo has a keen instinct when it comes to connecting a companies problems to technology solutions and finding beneficial applications for new and emerging technologies that create opportunity and growth for clients.
At Finlabs, his focus is on building a U.S. team that relishes any challenge, looks beyond their boundaries, and grows the collaborative relationships we desire with our clients.
