I cannot recall the times when I brought a capability to solve a problem that was a mismatch.

Does that ever happen to you?

I share this because at Improving we are deeply invested in establishing and building trust inside our company and with our clients.

I have the honor of facilitating one of our weekly Trust Pods. Each week we have conversations around the four cores of Trust and Trust behavior.

This week’s topic was capability.

Overestimating capability can damage trust. In product development, this can be quite challenging.

We think we can deliver a new product, product enhancement, or fix a defect based on capability. Occasionally, our teams do not have the needed experience and knowledge to make those commitments happen.

If your teams are struggling with capability, please let me know. We can have a private conversation around how that problem might be solved.

I was inspired by a post from Loren Greiff this morning.

Based on a conversation with Sophie Kurzius on Friday, I intend to “pull back the curtain” a bit on my other career outside of information technology.

When I share with folks who listen, I explain that I was “cool guy adjacent” or “supporting the cool guys”.

Kind of like Robin to Batman, but not a sidekick. I, and many like me, were more than sidekicks during our time in service.

The picture below was taken after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I was supporting recovery efforts in Texas, helping my U.S. Coast Guard colleagues return to being “mission ready”.

In business, we need colleagues and teams that support our creative efforts.

❓ If we don’t have clients and customers, might it be a result of sales and business development?

❓If our product is unable to operate properly, might it be a result of operations or IT?

❓If we’re not being paid, might it be a result of accounting and finance?

In any of these instances, if our business, company, or organization is struggling, might it be a result of our collective efforts being misaligned?

Being responsive to clients is customers is hard. Consider how you might assist your colleagues in a different role this week so that your business, company, or organization can all be “cool people”.

When it comes to modern product development, especially for internal software within companies, there are key principles that can lead to success.

🚀 Durable, Cross-functional Product Teams: Autonomous teams with the right capabilities, knowledge, and authority drive decisions. These teams stay together long enough to build domain expertise and user understanding. Aim for team sizes of 7 (+/-) 2 members, and break up larger products into logical fracture planes.

🚀 Risk Management Through Design Thinking: Manage risk early by deeply understanding the problem. Involve users from the outset, brainstorm multiple solutions, and iterate. Design thinking helps uncover unmet needs and ensures user-centric solutions.

🚀 Iterative Digital Product Development: The product lifecycle is a loop. Discover, design, implement, test, and deploy—then repeat. Each stage informs the next, ensuring continuous improvement.

🚀 Integrate Business and Product Development: Align business goals with product plans. Integrated product teams bridge the gap, fostering collaboration between marketing, engineering, design, and quality assurance.

🚀 Robust Design and Continuous Learning: Learn from past mistakes. Use robust design principles to avoid pitfalls. Embrace a culture of continuous learning and adaptability.

Remember, successful internal software products thrive when empowered teams collaborate, iterate, and remain close to users. 🌟

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