(Product) Explore: delivery lifecycles options

Read first

• Delivery lifecycles versus product lifecycle

Explore

"the risky search for a viable return on a viable investment"- Kent Beck

What we have to do in Explore is to solve the incertitude about WHAT and HOW:

• Do we know what & how to build?
• What we build is useful to potential customers and is required by the market?

We will have to experiment and validate our experiments from technical and business points of view. Here an example that suits the development of a complex product:

• Use the Exploratory Lean Startup life-cycle to start product development
• This first stage could end - in the happy case - with an MVP - Minimum Viable Product 
• Solution spikes (prototyping, experiment) practice is extensively used 

 Other options

• A hybrid approach could be used; after we have advanced with the exploration part we can also use some "normal" development lifecycles. Most likely, a significant look ahead will be not feasible, so Lean life-cycle (Kanban-like style) may be a good approach.
• For small, low complexity, low incertitude products, Agile Basic could be an option

Next sections

• Life-cycles options for Expand
• Life-cycles options for Extract

 

References

• Explore, Expand, Extract paper diagram ordered/received from Kent Beck  
• [B-Beck] – Product development triathlon
• https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/the-product-development-triathlon/1215075478525314/
• https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/the-product-development-triathlon-6464e2763c46
• [DA-LC] - Full delivery lifecycles.
• https://disciplinedagiledelivery.com/lifecycle/
• [DA-PAE] Disciplined Agile - Prove architecture early 
• https://disciplinedagiledelivery.com/prove-architecture-early/