Bringing about value quickly is a fundamental aim for Patrick Richardson as head of product at MasonHub. Because the logistics-focused tech company is working within a “quickly changing retail landscape,” he and his team lean on agile practices to help shape their production efforts.
“We built an agile team structure so we can onboard clients on their timelines without sacrificing our roadmap,” Richardson said.
According to Richardson, agility is an important guiding force that enables the team to be pliant in a way that’s responsive to customer needs while simultaneously providing the necessary guard rails that help inform how they reach their end goal: delivering a platform that enables brands to keep a pulse on inventory and fulfillment.
While Richardson singled out certain tools and fundamentals (think: software like Jira and Miro, and practices like insights-spurring retrospectives) that are beneficial to the MasonHub team, the product leader emphasized that different situations call for different applications — a reality Richardson identifies as a virtue.
“The brilliance of adopting the Agile philosophy is that there is no one formula that works for every company or situation,” Richardson said, emphasizing a thoughtful approach based on what addresses “the need of the moment.”
Below, Richardson highlighted the practices that work best for the product team in pursuit of providing the right fit for customers.
Does your team leverage the principles of agile in its methodology?
Agility is more than a methodology. It’s a philosophy that enables MasonHub to build flexible fulfillment products and adapt to support the quickly-changing retail landscape. We built an agile team structure so we can onboard clients on their timelines without sacrificing our roadmap. And our platform enables brands to be agile with their launch strategies by selling when inventory is en route or pre-selling SKUs held up in transit. Client collaboration and beta testing provides value quickly, like enabling distributed fulfillment with flexible order routing and splitting policies to a test group, then iterating to improve before opening it up to everyone.
But agility has challenges. You still need some level of planning to meet goals. Change is inevitable and should be built into the roadmap. Avoid always juggling agility versus deadlines by keeping your eye on commitments and overall company goals. It can also be hard to prioritize individuals and interactions over processes when everyone is remote. Jump on a video to work through problems instead of waiting for a meeting. And carve out time at the top of meetings for “witty banter” to socialize and build stronger team dynamics.
We built an agile team structure so we can onboard clients on their timelines without sacrificing our roadmap.”
How do you ensure that the principles are properly implemented so that they help developers and product managers, rather than hinder them?
We ensure Agile principles help and not hinder us by employing traditional rituals like daily standups, backlog grooming sessions, sprint planning and regular retrospectives to learn and adapt. We use tools like Jira, Confluence, Miro and Figma to document requirements, process flows and wireframes, which also allows us to rely on notifications and integrations to help us maintain high levels of communication throughout the development process. Additionally, we periodically reevaluate how we’re organized and shift resources to respond to changing or urgent needs, while continuing to delegate outcomes, inspire individuals, and give them the space and tools to do a great job.
The brilliance of adopting the Agile philosophy is that there is no one formula that works for every company or situation. It’s important to know when to employ different approaches to product and team management that meet the need of the moment, while balancing a lean-style MVP experimental framework with focused iteration. Agile requires adaptability, seeing certain things from different perspectives and applying the right tools for the job in order to achieve the best results.
