Owning Products and Owning Companies

In the corporate world mergers and acquisitions happen. A start-up first has a dream which the people working there actively pursuit. If everything goes well, there might someday be a financial success and possibly another company will decide to buy this start-up. This might take a short time or a longer period, but the fact is that most start-ups fail to see this day all in all. But what does this have to do with Agile? Maybe something, let's see.

I'm sharing here an example where I think an acquisition happened as smoothly as one can ever imagine. The buyer is not looking for a short term profit. They have a solid cash register and they invest according to their values. And they value quality and reliability over anything else. Getting dirty hands is OK. It's a sign of being a professional. You are ready to do what is needed.

I like to map things to a smaller scale because it's easier to apprehend. I think above mentioned acquisition compares nicely with a Development Team having a new Product Owner. And in this case the Product Owner is clearly stating that instead of feature creeping, the PO is more interested in getting solid increments of working software. What more can a team ask?

The bought company will also stay independent and can continue operating as they have done before. Talk about empowering the team. And this message is delivered by a very senior executive with a background in culture where losing your face is avoided by all means. And he wants to deliver the message personally because he sees the face to face interaction as a must. I think that builds trust.

Just a few hours after the announcement the people in the company are able to carry on their work and with a rather high spirit.You know something has been done correctly. Or at least not totally screwed up.

Build trust. Empower teams. Strive for quality over quantity. Envision the shared dream. These things scale.