Agile Meridian

Agile Meridian We are an Agile Coaching, Professional Coaching, Training, and near-shore/off-shore development serv

09/04/2026

80% of the features your team ships will rarely or never get used.

That's Gary Cohen's argument on this week's Meridian Point, and it matches what the broader product-adoption research keeps finding. Shipped isn't the same as used. Usage is the number teams avoid measuring because it would turn the roadmap red.

What's a feature your team shipped that you're pretty sure nobody uses?

09/03/2026

Your team keeps asking how their work ladders up to strategy.

Most of the time there's no strategy up there to ladder up to.

I run a leadership cohort built on a simple split: name the Tight (the outcome that matters) and grant the Loose (the autonomy on how to get there). It works cleanly for the leader running it. It falls apart one level up. Half the room can't tell you who named the Tight for them. Nobody above them ever did.

Planning systems that only count in one-year increments can't hold a three-year answer. So people build their own version of one: a shadow roadmap, a side deck, a verbal deal between two directors that nobody else in the org can see.

The gap isn't a communication problem. It's a naming problem.
If nobody above a team has named the Tight, the team will invent one. It just won't be the one you'd have chosen.

Where's the Tight in your organization that nobody above you has actually named?

09/01/2026

I ran a leadership exercise for a year and blamed the wrong thing. I kept calling it a decision-making problem. It wasn't. It was an authority problem.

The exercise assumes something it never states out loud: that everyone running it already holds the authority the model requires. Give it to someone who has that authority and it looks clean. Give it to someone who doesn't and it looks broken. Same tool, same instructions, completely different result, because the missing variable was never the person's judgment. It was their standing.

I've seen the same pattern outside leadership training, too. It shows up anywhere a model, a simulation, or a framework gets handed down without anyone checking whether the person receiving it actually carries the authority the tool assumes.

So the fix isn't a better framework. It's a smaller question, asked first.

Before you hand someone a scorecard, a decision-rights chart, or a governance model, check whether they already have the authority it assumes. If they don't, the tool isn't the problem.

Where in your org are you handing someone a framework for a call they were never actually given the authority to make?

08/27/2026

People are looking for transformation, not content.

Renee Rosendahl of Circle said it on The Meridian Point: content is everywhere and nearly free now, and what actually changes people is going through the work with other humans.

What did a community change for you that a course never could?

08/27/2026

80% of the features your teams shipped last year are rarely or never used.

Your delivery didn't fail. It delivered. The features landed on schedule and nobody came.

Pendo's research has carried that number for years, and roadmap reviews still treat shipped as done. The demo happens, the box gets checked, the team rolls to the next epic. Nobody asks whether anyone touched the thing.

Gary Cohen and I dug into exactly this on the latest Meridian Point episode, Why 80% of Features Go Unused. The discipline underneath it is uncomfortable: building the right thing is different work from building the thing right, and most organizations only staffed the second one.

Usage is a reading almost nobody takes, because taking it puts the roadmap at risk. If shipped counts as done, the plan stays green. Start counting use and half of last year turns red retroactively.

I went deeper on the fix in Obtain a Yield: A Payoff You Defer Is a Payoff You Can't Steer. A yield is a result the customer would pay for, not output you can point at in a demo.

One move for your next roadmap review: for every feature shipped last quarter, ask who used it last week. Count the shrugs.

What did your team ship this year that nobody has checked for use even once?

08/26/2026

I've sat on feedback for three weeks and told myself I was being kind.

It wasn't kindness. It was cover, and the person who needed the truth paid for my comfort.

Withheld feedback protects the person who owes it and strands the person who needs it. The full argument is in this week's blog, Obtain a Yield: A Payoff You Defer Is a Payoff You Can't Steer. A payoff you defer is a payoff you can't steer, and deferred feedback steers nobody.

I put the sixty-second version on YouTube. The ten-minute fix is in it. Link's in the first comment.

Whose feedback are you sitting on right now?

🎙️ NEW EPISODE: His Teams Hit Every Deadline. 80% of What They Built Went Unused.Gary Cohen spent twenty years in softwa...
08/25/2026

🎙️ NEW EPISODE: His Teams Hit Every Deadline. 80% of What They Built Went Unused.

Gary Cohen spent twenty years in software product companies building a delivery machine that hit its dates almost every time. Customers liked the features. The engine hummed.

Then a private equity board member asked one question most teams never hear until it's too late. "What additional revenue do we expect from all these features?" The honest answer sent Gary chasing a harder problem than "are we on track," the problem of whether they were building the right thing at all.

Gary Cohen joins Kumar Dattatreyan, ICF PCC to explore:

✦ Why roughly 80% of features go unused, and the board question that exposed it
✦ What embracing uncertainty actually looks like, and why it's a competitive edge instead of a weakness
✦ Why red, yellow, green status meetings turn into theater, and the watermelon project problem
✦ The questions that turn a status interrogation into real discovery
✦ Where product management goes when AI makes shipping code cheap

"We can ship stuff people don't want a lot faster."

-Gary Cohen

Listen:
Apple:https://lnkd.in/gb92KnYQ
Spotify:https://lnkd.in/gbR5YzcW
YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/live/o2sH0PqZoSQ?si=tFk4ZWvvsCXhvHXy

08/25/2026

The launch is where most initiatives stop getting attention.

The town hall happens. The rollout hits its dates. The deck gets filed. Everyone moves to the next thing.

That's output. It's not a yield.

A yield is a result someone would pay for, not the fact that something shipped on time. The initiative gets treated as done the moment it launches, and nobody goes back to find out if it actually changed anything.

The reason is simple. Going back means you might find out it didn't land. And if it didn't land, whatever you built on top of it is standing on nothing.

I went deeper on this in Obtain a Yield: A Payoff You Defer Is a Payoff You Can't Steer. A payoff you never check is one you can't steer either.

One move: pick the biggest initiative your team launched in the last six months. Ask three people it was supposed to help whether anything actually changed for them.

What's the last initiative your team launched and never went back to measure?

08/25/2026

Most teams get really good at the wrong thing.

Gary Cohen spent twenty years perfecting delivery. His teams hit every sprint. Customers came to every review. Then a board member asked what revenue all those features would drive, and the real answer was: not much. They had mastered shipping the thing right while barely asking if it was the right thing.

Our new episode is about closing that gap through product discovery. We cover embracing uncertainty as a strategy, why status meetings turn into theater, and where product management goes once AI makes the build cheap.

One line stuck with me. When something gets cheaper, people do more of it, so discovery matters more, not less.

Watch or listen here: [link]



About The Meridian Point: Host Kumar Dattatreyan talks with people navigating disruption and innovation, from Agile and AI to organizational change. New episodes every two weeks on LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook.

Connect with Gary: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyacohen

Connect with Kumar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachkdat

Learn more: https://www.agilemeridian.com

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