Pivot or Persevere

Abstract

We found that the concepts of a pivot were not necessarily foreign to the portfolio management team and the program managemenet office. Traditional product development frameworks introduce phase gates to support a GO/NO GO decision at various intervals of the development process. In practice though these become mere administrative hurdles to overcome as the project or program progresses towards completion and the product is released to the market. Often the phase gates involve only a review of documentation rather than evidence based feedback to a working model of the product. This is where pivoting provides a different framework than the traditional phase gate approach. The decision to pivot must be based on empirical validation evidence (relevant lead-impact metrics). This evidence is collected from real consumers (representing the selected persona) who interact with a partial solution - an MVP. The MVP integrates important and uncertain assumptions that we identified enabling us to meaure true alignment with our vision. These pivot decisions are in line with our vision and mission to deliver the right products and features that would delight our customers.