Is Your Software Company A Feature Factory Or A Lean Startup?

Healthy Developer

Why do some software companies build exciting products with the freedom of a lean startup, while others deliver boring products like a feature factory run by control freaks?

In this episode I ask this question: “Does Your Company Feel More Like a Factory, or a College“?

Whether you’re using agile methods like scrum, kanban, or any other process – up front design is still alive and well in many companies. To truly build innovative software products that cause your company to profit so you can get the rewards and recognition you want – people must let go.

When features are identified has a big impact on success. Many companies focus mostly on the features for their software that they can think of or hear from customers ahead of time. But it’s those features discovered only after you release your product to them using devops and continuous delivery approaches, with an agile budget, that cause you to profit greatly.

This is the approach popularized by Eric Ries book “The Lean Startup”. Companies run like a factory try to predict value, while companies run like a college discover value.

Companies run like a factory control people, while companies run like a college trust people.

Companies run like a factory use burn-down charts to measure progress, while companies run like a college use learning milestones.

Companies run like a factory use a project budget, while companies run like a college use a monthly budget.

Companies run like factory focus on measuring expenses, while companies run like a college focus on measuring profit.

Do you work at a company that feels more like a software factory (or feature factory), or a college?

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