Annealing and Tempering Product Teams
Annealing and tempering are two complementary heat treatment processes used to alter the physical characteristics of a material, most often metal. They’re frequently used to increase the strength of the metal while ensuring it does not become brittle. Like annealing and tempering – the learning processes that take place in the Dojo make product teams stronger while reducing their brittleness.
But first, some grounding…
What is a “Product Team”?
A product team is a group of people working together to deliver a product. Collectively, they have all the perspectives and skills necessary to develop the product.
The team has deep customer knowledge. They have a shared understanding of the customer’s desires and their underlying needs.
They understand the product opportunity as well as the development costs, allowing them to make informed design and delivery decisions about their product.
Their skills are not limited to development. They are also able to validate ideas in the early stages of product discovery, frame the product development effort in a way that supports fast feedback loops for learning and adjusting, deploy and run the product in production, and make adjustments based on analytics and feedback from real customers.
How does the Dojo help?
First, the Dojo helps organizations understand how to form product teams. Resilient teams don’t spend weeks spinning around product feature decisions or struggle for long periods of time under the weight of not understanding their technology. It’s common to restructure teams during the intake process before they even enter the Dojo, ensuring all the skills necessary to complete product development are represented.
Product teams strengthen their skills by focusing on learning. All learning in the Dojo is done in the context of real product development, but learning is prioritized over delivery. And learning together – in pairs, small groups, and as a full-team – strengthens skills better than individual training.
A distinct advantage Dojos have over traditional courses is that teams improve all of the skills encompassing the full product development lifecycle. No more piecemeal training that doesn’t stick because teams don’t understand how it fits into the bigger picture. Or worse yet, training that doesn’t stick because it’s incompatible with the rest of the development cycle.
Product teams develop self-awareness by going through a Dojo experience together. They gain an understanding of each other’s strengths and skills and know how to best employ them collectively to optimize product development.
Would you like to have strong product development teams? If so, the Dojo will help you get there.