The Adept Blog

Product lines, thought through in public.

Essays on managing product lines as systems — strategy, flow, velocity, and roadmapping — from Paul O’Connor and The Adept Group.

Systems thinkingManage the line, not one product.
Velocity & flowWhat actually ships, and how fast.
RoadmappingThe whole stack, across generations.

What you’ll find

The ideas behind the trilogy, worked out loud.

The blog is where the product-line system gets argued in the open — archetypes, platform-levers, decision flow, the tilting effect, verb-based segmentation, and outcome velocity.

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Browse by topic

Six threads run through everything here.

Product Line StrategyProduct Lines as SystemsFlow & VelocityResponsive RoadmappingPortfolio ManagementCorporate Innovation

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Latest

Recent posts.

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Cumulative FrontierADEPT GROUP 2021

Portfolio Analysis Versus Governance

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Delivering an analyst’s view into a governance meeting is a surefire way to annoy some lots of people. You’ll find project leaders and team members at the front of the line. And the governance team will be right behind them.
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Portfolio Flow

Flow-Products in Development

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Portfolio visualization at it’s best: Created by smart data analytics pulled off by MS Power BI; then coupling the data to our tried-and-true tool PortViewTM.
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Single-Product Mindset

Trapped in The Single-Product Mindset

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A wave of change pushing product technologies and customer behaviors. And it’s forcing companies to re-tool how they create and develop new offerings. The problem is that many companies are trapped in a single product mindset, making meaningful change nearly impossible.
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Product Line Entropy

Growth and Entropy

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Growth-induced entropy has two characteristics that managers should understand. First, it can work against your goals. Because it's chaotic, it's not likely to push in the direction you want. And second, when left alone, entropy always grows. You need to spot and tame entropy if you wish to avoid bad outcomes.
Read more
Online-Workshop

Product Lines as Systems Online Workshop

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Learn key product line system parts and forces including platform-levers, verb-based market segments, and chain-link synergy.
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Digital Transformation

Digital Transformations and Product Lines

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Companies need to focus their digital transformations on improving their product lines’ performance. And they need to do that by focusing on each product line’s velocity. This is a big deal. Pleas take a moment to learn why!
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Keep reading

Bring the systems view to your own line.

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