There are those modern methods and frameworks of agile software development, business model canvas, lean startups, design thinking and the like. They are praised for a new way of thinking and working.
With the methods and tools, we want to overcome burning issues we feel in our daily work: building valuable products in a complex environment based on incomplete information; getting alignment within the team and with stakeholders early on; and being adaptive to the things we learn on our way as we do (user) experiments and build MVPs.
But guess what: others have been there before, facing the same issues. And it was already in the 19th century that people practiced agile methods and emphasized the importance of learning and context. They didn’t call it that way, though.
Stephen Bungay has been a strategy consultant for over 30 years. He is also a military historian. His book, ‘The Art of Action’ takes lessons from the Prussian Army of the 19th century and applies it to strategy and organization of the modern business worlds. Any product person reading the book will find that the issues described are quite similar to the challenges of product management. It is very helpful to see the root causes and apply the learnings to the daily work of product management.
Talk of Stephen Bungay
7.7.2015 18:00 @ XING offices
I am very happy that Stephen will give a public talk about his topic on the 7th of July in our XING offices. If you are interested, you can register for the event here.
If you don’t have time or want to learn more about his thinking in advance, you can download this short PDF summary of his webpage. I can promise you that the insight density of this paper is very high.
