When there is alignment between these functions, transparency and trust increase between EPD (Engineering, Product, Design) and Business. The R&D investment becomes more focused on outcomes relevant to the business. The business is able to grow efficiently while delighting customers.

Underlying these are many more benefits: productivity rises, developer (employee) satisfaction & motivation rises, ownership mindest grows, innovation mindset grows, unit economics improve, quality improves, there are fewer surprises, the technology and product seem more ready to support business scale in an economically viable manner, the business is more responsive to market changes.

Trust is paramount. Without it things start to fall apart rapidly, a downward spiral kicks in. This must be avoided at all costs. The more alignment there is, the more trust-building outcomes occur, trust builds, and the cycle repeats itself. Everyone feels empowered. Customers satisfaction rises in a sustainable manner.

moving towards alignment

Consider these questions:

1. In what ways is your technology and product strategy aligned with where the business needs to be in 12 months? 36 months?
   
2. How well does this represent the current state of operations in the business?

It is common for organizations to be submerged in the cadence of operating the business. To not have the time to pose and ponder these types of questions. For a growing technology-based business, not doing this can be an existential threat. New upstarts can easily leapfrog your product offering. Strategic business planning is common. For a technology-based product company, the strategic plan must paint the required future state of product and technology, based on the desired buiness state.

This requires taking a step back from the usual operational flow. Work with someone like a product coach who can guide you in this highly valuable and strategic process.

Some of the EPD specific things to explore:

• What outcomes will be produced by the current work in progress? Consider differentiating between business outcomes, product outcomes, technology outcomes. For example a business outcomes like 10% growth in subscribers requires 3 different product outcomes to happen, which in turn requires a technology platform to be ready (tech outcome). This step will take effort and time, but should result in alignment on thinking about the state in terms of business, product, tech outcomes.
• What business oucomes must be realized in 12-24-36 months? What are the underlying product and technology outcomes that must be realized and by when?
• Is the R&D investment aligned with this future state? This question results in a multi-dimensional exploration.
  • Are the EPD resources deployed correctly?
  • Is the team topology optimized for these outcomes? ¹
  • Is the planned set of initiatives correct?
  • Is there a roster of all the teams, individuals, skills? This is one of the pre-requisites for team topology alignment.
  • Is there a catalog of all technology the business depends on? This needs to indicate criticality of the technology along with its current state. Which ones require investment?
  • Is there a catalog of all product capabilities? Which ones are critical? Which ones should be deprecated?

Once you get started with this process, it is relatively easy to keep things up to date with a week or two of attention by EPD and business leadership each quarter. More time can be invested in this exericse when conducting annual planning.

The entire business will benefit from the growth in trust between business and EPD.

NOTES

1. From Empowered by Marty Cagan and Chris Jones ↩︎