Summary
The best companies build their most innovative products when they give teams problems to solve, rather than features to build, and allow them to learn, test, and iterate rapidly. Everywhere we see the value in less design up front, speaking directly with users, and leaders getting out of the way. However, how can self-organizing teams be sure that collectively we're headed in the same direction? How can leaders with limited resources ensure our teams are aligned without disempowering them? Enter Growth Boards, a lean governance tool to help you find that happy medium between chaos and command and control.
Key Insights
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Enterprises benefit from shifting product teams to include designers cross-functionally, aligning design with product and engineering goals.
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Growth boards introduce a lean governance model that balances autonomy and alignment between leadership and product teams.
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Growth boards are inspired by venture capital boards focusing on real metrics like revenue and burn rate instead of simply status updates.
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Cross-functional boards involving finance, legal, sales, and design improve transparency and strategic funding decisions.
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Quarterly growth board meetings help teams present vision, user problems, metrics, team health, blockers, and requests transparently.
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Growth boards encourage honest conversations, enabling teams to pivot or downsize when a product is not progressing or strategic.
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Initial adoption of growth boards can require significant preparation time as teams build capabilities in roadmapping, metrics, and presentations.
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Effective follow-up after growth board meetings is crucial to maintain momentum and keep teams informed on leadership decisions.
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Growth boards enable data-driven resource allocation, preventing funding decisions based on internal politics or loudest voices.
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Adopting growth boards signals organizational maturity in scaling agile from startup to enterprise, often requiring foundational practices like clear OKRs first.
Notable Quotes
"Everyone is looking for ways to build better products and go faster."
"Growth boards are a lean governance tool borrowed from the mindset of venture capital."
"There are no physical boards involved, no whiteboard, no mood boards. The board part refers to people like a board of directors."
"Lean governance tries to find the sweet spot between chaos and command and control."
"Many product teams have never come face to face with their revenue numbers before."
"Growth boards meetings are aimed around being very honest about the health of your product."
"If the investment isn’t paying out, we actually recommend that you divert that investment to another area."
"Growth boards enabled direction change sooner by objectively evaluating team health and strategic alignment."
"At first, teams felt like they stopped everything just to prepare for the growth board."
"Growth boards demonstrate you can have agile software development at enterprise scale without rigid processes or chaos."
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