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The Product Mindset®

Build software for business outcomes

How you think about software development is just as important as your development practices or any methodology you follow. Research shows that software development failure rates are as high as 80%. 3Pillar believes that all software, not just revenue-generating products, should be undertaken with a Product Mindset® if you want to avoid becoming just another statistic. The Product Mindset is meant to get everyone in your organization speaking the same language and driving toward the same results, maximizing your chances of success.

The Product Mindset provides a framework for thinking about development that prioritizes three things above all: minimizing time to value, solving for need, and excelling at change. If you can check each of these boxes, your odds of developing successful software will increase exponentially. The Product Mindset is informed and has been shaped by successfully delivering thousands of projects since 3Pillar was founded.

The Product Mindset principles

Minimize time to value

Time is frequently in short supply when you’re developing software. The Product Mindset emphasizes finding the shortest path to value for you and your users. The best way to achieve this is through a repeated sequence of user research, rapid prototyping, and iterative testing.

Solve for need

Opinions and conjecture are a software development team’s worst enemies. We extract actionable insights from user data and feedback to ensure we’re always solving for need, not taking shots in the dark. Understanding user wants and needs and comparing how close the software is to hitting those marks are critical components of any successful development effort.

Excel at change

Knowing when to pivot and when to hold fast is imperative for product teams. Building the capability to navigate change with ease is a must, as many of your original ideas and assumptions will likely turn out to be wrong once they’re vetted and tested in real-world scenarios.

The Product Mindset’s impact

The big idea behind the Product Mindset is that, far too often, teams get hung up focusing on the wrong things. They obsess about building the product the right way instead of ensuring they’re building the right product. Countless software teams devotedly follow agile methodologies to the letter…and still wind up delivering features or functionality that nobody wants, needs, or uses. The Product Mindset gives everyone involved in bringing software to life, from the business owners to Product Managers to engineers and QA, a common language and framework for thinking about what’s most important when launching a new solution either internally or into the market.

We wrote the book on The Product Mindset

We believe so strongly in the Product Mindset that our founder, David DeWolf, and our former VP of Product Strategy & Design, Jessica Hall, wrote a book on it. By adhering to this mindset, we successfully develop software that drives real business impact. It starts with aligning our clients’ objectives to their users’ needs for every release. We get smart about what customers choose and don’t use and optimize each update for maximum impact. Download the eBook to get real-world examples of how following The Product Mindset will set you up for success in an increasingly digital world.

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