Agile Disrupted

Requirements Gathering or Gospel


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It’s not discovery. It’s discoveries.


If you were asked, how does the company you work for make money? Break it down. Whether it’s an early startup living off of seed funding or a corporate empire running multi-billion dollar enterprises across the globe, what part do you play in helping your company thrive as a business


Some responses might be, “Beats me. But who cares? I’m getting paid.” For how long? It all comes down to that, doesn’t it? Money


Businesses will fight until their last dying breath to stay invincible in a market that never stops shifting. As Alexander Osterwalder, CEO of Strategyzer, simply puts it, “business models are like containers of yogurt in a fridge with an expiration date.” What evidence can we rely on as indicators of progress that the companies we work for will thrive throughout the test of time? Or even the next decade? Or the next meeting?


Let’s think about:

  • Is it more important to gather requirements on how to build a product or service that isn’t supported by strong evidence of demand or usability? 
  • When do Business Requirements Documents (BRD) expire
  • When do Assumption Maps expire? 
  • What risks come with falling in love with your first idea of a solution to a systemic problem experienced by the business? 
  • Do our habits of Problem-Solution Fit make us complacent in delaying evidence around Product-Market Fit before scaling to Business Model Market Fit?
  • How often is Software Research & Design (R&D) funded to validate new business ideas before building them for the mass public?
  • Do our habits of peak efficiency limit us in uncovering opportunities & solutions for effectiveness for the same outcome?
  • Does a company that began in Software Research & Design (R&D) share the same measure of variability with a company that began in a PMO? 
  • What does uncertainty look like for a company that carries products and services dependent on both Software Research & Design (R&D) and a PMO?
  • Does our disdain for the risks that come with a PMO make us dismissive in understanding the organization design of how a company makes money?
  • What happens when both good business ideas and bad business ideas get funded in a company? 
  • What risks do we experience as a business when we pivot and when we persevere, but never to kill a bad business idea?

  • Does a company become invincible through the confidence of its leaders claiming certainty around the existing products and services that have given financial security up until now, or is it through the leaders who never stopped being entrepreneurs, that carry the conviction to navigate the uncertainty that comes with running a business? The dichotomy remains. 


    Find out with newest guest Thomas Schaefer and the return of guest speaker Kaelin Burns, as we uncover what happens when we get caught up in the art of product, but lose sight of the science of business 🔥

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