Any chance that we will get rid of the Agile nonsense? I swear Product Managers and Product Owners are useless. Could save quite a bit eliminating those roles and replacing with some competent project managers.
6 replies (most recent on top)
While I believe in agile, At EDJ Product is where projects go to die. That org is so bloated, that no one knows who's on first. To the post above indicating that leaders say that product owners "own" their product is exactly the problem. Product owners try to land grab work and make decisions that should be led by business owners accountable for firm outcomes. It's a cluster, but not the main source of disfunction at EDJ. It's the GP's, consensus driven decision making, and lack of efficient tools and processes.
The GPs we have had over the years have absolutely no experience with our field. They are simply administrative babysitters. The people below them are getting the work done.
I’ve noticed we have a lot of GP’s leading areas they know nothing about. So they have ideas but lack experience in the area they are leading. It also seems like EJ makes the big decisions in silos. Penny gets together with her cronies, making decisions without associate or field input and then we’re beholden to it, Moneyguide is a great example, it’s a terrible solution and FA’s are saying it. Now we’ve pushed data under Andy, and “tech” under Kristin if I understand the ELT announcement. What does Andy (CFO) know about data architecture and design?
Agree with previous poster, I work with product as a business owner, they are on top of what we need and show value in delivery. The bigger problem is leadership up a tier. GP's push projects they know nothing about. We receive them and have to make the best of them even when they are initiatives our direct users do not want or need. Instead of enhancing experiences we launch, we are forced to move to the next shiny thing and it directly impacts usability of our clients.
As someone in a product role at EJ, there are rights and wrongs in this post. Product is not applied properly everywhere at the firm. In my space, our leaders have led the charge in ensuring freedom to "own" product.
The really issue isn't product, it's the way we fund and source work. Product doesn't have the freedom to do what's need to drive success. We are handicapped by GPs pushing project that we don't need.
Perfect example is moneyguide. It's a cruddy solution that doesn't meet client or branch needs. Product identified this immediately across the firm based on real client/branch feedback, we shared this with possible solutions and were told tough luck.
It's unlikely. Agile has benefits but has been poorly deployed at Edward Jones. It only took off when we hired external consultants who, unsurprisingly, brought and "Agile Good, Waterfall Stupid" mindset. SAFe is largely seen as just waterfall with different words. These same consultants were unable to effectively implement agile practices. There was no desire to listen to any contrary opinions. At the same time we hired many external people who had product management on their resume, assuming that their magical agile experience more than compensated for the culture they were coming into. That also turned out to be not true. It will be a couple more years before the ship turns, and likely will only be when a new GP comes in, whispers in the right ears, and hires more consultants to bring in the latest way of getting the same work done.