Startup CXO

Chapter 96Product Development Culture

Good culture is a strategic advantage for a business and this is the key in the product development organization too, because everything else hangs off of your culture. Your ability to create remarkable products is a lot more likely if you have a culture that embraces innovation and creativity. Your ability to balance the team between pragmatism proportional to the business while hitting real outcomes (not just output) is accelerated with a good culture. Your ability to adapt and change as the company grows is a direct result of the culture you create.

While the product development team benefits from the overall company culture, it is a distinct subculture within a business and it's important to understand those differences and cultivate the culture you need if you want an effective product development organization. The first things to get right about your culture is exactly how you'll fit within the larger company.

The product development team is not just the execution‐arm for the company. They own the roadmap and they're the ones shaping the product to have the biggest impact on customers. You can't do this alone and you'll need to cultivate a collaborative relationship with other functions like Sales and Marketing to understand their strategies. It's not uncommon to get requests from the business to experiment on things, but I'd suggest that you keep this in perspective because you'll have your own needs and requirements to manage innovation, ...