ENTP 6375 0W1
July 22, 2018
Pearson Case
Question 1: What challenges does Adams-Woodford face as he develops his five-year
product roadmap?
• Slow economic growth = smaller education budgets = less money for people to spend on
Pearson products
o Had to figure out a way to still be competitive when money was tight at all levels
of education
• Development team driving decisions instead of product management
o Development team didn’t have communication with customers = new version
lacked changes they wanted
• SuccessMaker: Waterfall methodology
o Freezing product requirements at beginning of development cycle
▪ Development team in India = miscommunication happened a lot →
contractual constraints meant changing requirements mid cycle were
expensive or hard to change
▪ As product was development new requirements that better fit customers’
requirements might be needed however this was difficult to change
o Must commit to multiyear road map of features = no significant changes in scope
▪ Individually budgeted and committed in business unit’s strategic plan
▪ Changes to map viewed negatively
ENTP 6375 0W1
July 22, 2018
▪ Issue: with technology it can be difficult to plan years in advance → when
stuck with the same scope you may not give the customers what they
actually want and therefore lose them
o Internal planning easier because scope frozen for years
▪ Little effort put into making sure committed features met customer needs
or looking at unanticipated or alternative features once map was set
Question 2: What benefits did Pearson realize in making the shift from a Waterfall process
to an Agile one? What downsides might be associated with this shift? What firm or market
circumstances are more likely to benefit from a Waterfall or Agile methodology?
• Benefits
