Agile Austin

Join us for a great program at the Agile Austin Product and AI SIG! Once you sign up, you'll receive an email with a calendar event and Zoom link.

Session Title:
Customer Collaboration: Agile Lip Service or Essential Enabler - Part I of II

A Practical Two-Part Discussion on the Customer Role in Product Development

Abstract:
Customer collaboration is one of the four core principles of the Agile Manifesto, yet for many teams it feels either too abstract to apply or too risky to attempt. In physical and hybrid product development, this confusion is amplified. Teams typically fall into one of two patterns: continuing business as usual by executing against fixed requirements with little real customer insight, or adopting a superficial feedback approach that devolves into debate over opinion-driven feature requests.

In both cases, teams rely on iterative cycles to appear agile while outcomes fail to improve. The issue is not cadence. It is a lack of clarity around why customer insight matters, how to obtain it with the right focus, and how to use it effectively to improve speed, value, and decision quality.

What We'll Cover:
Effective agile teams use customer input to reduce uncertainty, guide tradeoff decisions, and adapt at the right level of fidelity at the right time. Drawing on industry examples and direct experience, our facilitator, Dorian Simpson, will lead a discussion focused on the true purpose of customer collaboration and how to apply it with intent.

As this is such a rich topic, we'll tackle this in two parts.

Session 1: The Purpose and Channels for Accessing Your Customers' Brain
This session will focus on the why, who, when and where of customer collaboration before delving into the "how".

We'll explore:

• The type of feedback needed for agile development success
• The elements of powerful feedback systems to deliver the right insight at the right time.
• What a customer channel looks like, how to set one up, and who is responsible.
• Along the way, we will have an interactive discussion on common pitfalls and how to overcome them.

Speaker: Dorian Simpson, Founder, Chief Evangelist MAHD Framework

Dorian Simpson is a product and innovation leader with over 20 years of experience helping organizations build agile, customer-focused capabilities for complex physical and hybrid products.

He is the founder of the MAHD Framework (Modified Agile for Hardware Development) and has worked with leading innovators, Fortune 500 companies, and consulting firms including BCG to move teams beyond agile theory to measurable outcomes. His work spans product development, portfolio strategy, and organizational enablement across technology-driven industries, combining deep technical grounding with practical business leadership.

Dorian holds a BSEE from Northwestern University, an MBA from the University of San Diego, is a certified NPDP, and is the author of The Savvy Corporate Innovator.