One of the key elements of Agile product development is to get frequent feedback from users to validate that your development is headed in the right direction.  One way I have been experimenting with getting this feedback is through weekly 10 minute ‘product videos’ that I make every Friday.  In these recorded sessions I demonstrate new features, review the product roadmap and sprint backlog, and talk about the key benefits that our product offers.  These are aimed primarily at internal users, our sales and marketing team, and the support team that has to answer questions about the new features we are building.

So far these weekly videos are getting a good response.  The team enjoys a quick recap of what we have done both mid-sprint and at the end of each two-week cycle.  The recordings help me both communicate to the team efficiently and crystallize what the value of our new features is – if I can’t summarize why we built what we did in a few minutes then it might not have been worth doing.

How do you communicate to internal stakeholderes what your team is working on and why? These videos are of course not a substitute for real user-acceptance testing and product demonstration scenarios, but they do allow a wider audience to get a high-level view into what is happening with our core product.  At times these videos generate questions and feedback from folks I would not have been able to sit down with one-on-one.  I’d like to get deeper feedback from more people but in truth it’s not that simple.