Articles

Leading effective stakeholder updates →

Making the most of weekly updates with stakeholders keeps the product team moving forward with clarity. Follow this simple checklist to share your progress.

Introduction to project management →

In this article, we share how product managers can maintain a sustainable, agile product development rhythm while delivering quality software.

The balanced product team →

Balanced teams promote a culture of quality and collaboration. Learn how the XC deploys this flexible team structure to deliver high-quality software.

Team rhythm →

For a balanced team, each week should be peppered with a regular set of cadenced activities. Read how we use these ceremonies to promote speed, collective understanding, and camaraderie.

Product vision and strategy →

Learn how to craft a compelling product vision that motivates your team, and how to develop a strong strategy to deliver it.

The product development lifecycle →

The lean startup feedback cycle can continuously de-risk and improve the products you build. Learn how to use it to build something viable, desirable, and feasible.

Managing a product backlog →

Learn how a well-maintained backlog represents the team's product vision and strategy and how that translates into the tactical work of the team takes on.

Writing user stories →

Read how short, simple descriptions of a feature told from the perspective of a person help teams discuss, design, and build digital experiences that resonate with users.

Communication →

Learn how collective understanding between team members, stakeholders, sponsors, and leadership is critical to the launch of successful products, services, and experiences.

Iteration planning meetings →

Iteration planning meeting (IPM) are crucial to keeping a well-maintained backlog and a steady cadence of work. Read how to use these weekly meeting to keep the product team aligned.

Retrospectives →

Read how we use retrospectives as a dedicated agile ceremony to celebrate the past week’s successes, discuss points of confusion and reflect on challenges.

Outcome-oriented roadmaps →

An outcome-oriented roadmap communicates how you intend to realize your strategy. Assess how to build a roadmap that emphasizes results over simple feature development.

Lean canvas →

This article discusses the value of using the lean canvas framework to help teams stay disciplined about documenting and validating their riskiest business model hypotheses.

Testing value & growth hypotheses →

Product teams should articulate the user value they predict any given feature will deliver. Read how to systematically gather evidence to support or debunk your hypotheses.

User testing validation →

Product teams naturally operate off a series of assumptions in determining exactly what to build. Read how we continuously validate our product decisions based on user feedback.