Glassbox Blog: Agile Is Cool and All—But It Needs Better Data (Like, Yesterday)

TL;DR:

Agile alone isn’t cutting it—without solid, connected data, product teams are flying blind. Top teams are using digital experience intelligence to break down silos, spot behavior patterns, predict churn, and understand what customers aren’t saying. The result? Faster insights, better decisions, and products users actually want. _____________________________________________________________________________ Alright, let’s just put it out there: Agile has officially hit its golden retriever era. It’s loyal, energetic, everyone claims to love it… but something’s still not working. Despite the 70+ tools out there promising to help teams get their Agile act together, somehow, almost half of product pros still admit their roadmaps don’t even reflect what customers actually want. Yikes.

So, what’s going wrong?

Well, Agile without good data is kind of like assembling IKEA furniture without the instructions. Sure, you could wing it. But odds are, that bookshelf’s gonna be upside down and missing a screw.

And look, Agile is better than the waterfall ways of old. We’re not here to cancel it. But if the data behind your process is a hot mess—siloed, outdated, straight-up unusable—then Agile won’t save you. It might even slow you down.

Let’s get into why that is, and more importantly, what some smart folks are doing about it.

The Data Dilemma: Why Agile Alone Isn’t Cutting It

Here’s the brutal truth: a lot of product managers are flying blind.

They’re stuck juggling stakeholders, playing politics, and trying to read between the lines of every half-baked survey and chaotic customer interview. Meanwhile, the data they do have? Siloed. Conflicting. Or so unstructured it’s practically a Jackson Pollock painting.

IBM says over 80% of enterprise data isn’t even usable. Which is a polite way of saying: we’re drowning in numbers and still can’t find the lifeboat.

And here’s the kicker—customers today are not here for your “oops, we shipped the wrong thing” era. Not with CACs going up 222% in less than a decade, shrinking budgets, and competitors launching knockoff versions of your product with a drag-and-drop tool and a Canva account.

Basically: the room for error is gone. So if you’re not backed by good data, your Agile process is just speedrunning the wrong direction.

3 Chaotic Ways Bad Data Wrecks Your Product Flow

1. You’re Guessing What Customers Want (and They’re Not Saying Much)

Let’s be honest: interviews are great in theory. But in practice? They’re hard to scale, super time-consuming, and often lead to false hope. People are really bad at predicting their own future behavior. I mean, I thought I’d get up early and stretch this morning. Did I? Not even close.

Surveys aren’t much better. They typically capture about 4–7% of your users—and it’s usually the most vocal ones (bless them), not the silent majority who just ghost your product without a word.

Here’s a stat that stings: 91% of unhappy users won’t even tell you they’re unhappy. They’ll just dip. No feedback. No goodbye. Just vibes.

2. Your Roadmap Is Basically a Tug-of-War

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a roadmap derailed by a loud stakeholder or a random “urgent” feature request from someone in sales. (All of us? Cool.)

Prioritization is the #1 challenge cited by PMs—and it’s no wonder. Too often, roadmaps are built around who yells loudest, not what delivers the most customer value.

And without clear business impact tied to features, teams are measuring success by delivery dates instead of outcomes. You know, like checking a box that says “done” even if nobody actually uses what you built.

3. Everyone’s Working With Different Puzzle Pieces

Product, DevOps, CX, marketing—we all play a part in shaping the customer experience. But we’re usually buried in our own data sets, talking past each other like that meme with the Spider-Men pointing at one another.

You’ve got product analytics in one tab, web analytics in another, some DevOps error logs in a tool that looks like it requires a PhD to use, and VoC data scattered across surveys and support tickets. No one’s seeing the full picture.

It’s like trying to review a movie when you’ve only watched 15 random minutes of it—good luck making sense of the plot.

How Smart Product Teams Are Fixing It

Okay, deep breath. Here’s where things get better. The teams that are actually making Agile work? They’re doing three things differently:

1. They’re Smashing Silos for a Full View of the Digital Experience

They’re not just looking at product metrics. They’re layering in web analytics, VoC, and technical performance data. It’s like switching from a grainy VHS tape to full-on IMAX.

Digital experience intelligence (fancy phrase, but stay with me) brings all that data together, so you can actually see how technical hiccups, UX friction, and user behavior collide—and what that means for adoption, churn, conversion, and all the good stuff.

2. They Reverse-Engineer Behavior to Catch Problems Early

Instead of guessing who’s about to churn based on vibes and a lack of logins, they analyze patterns that led up to cancellations and work backwards. Like digital CSI.

“Oh, look, 24% of Pro users who ignored three emails also downgraded their account a few weeks later. And hey—this group of users is starting to show similar behavior.”

Boom. Now you know who to target before they hit the eject button.

Even better? You can check if a specific feature had a weird drop-off around that time, or if a bug crept in. Devs can jump in, marketing can launch re-engagement—everybody’s playing offense, not defense.

3. They’re Listening to What Customers Aren’t Saying

Because most won’t complain. But their behavior? That’s a loud, chaotic novel if you know how to read it.

Let’s say only 25 users said the checkout page was broken, but 800 people bailed from that exact funnel. Digital experience tools can match up user sessions, find the patterns, and surface the real issue.

You can even attach revenue to it. That broken page? Could be costing you $12K a month. Now it’s not just a bug—it’s a business case for fixing it, fast.

Back to You

Here’s the truth bomb: Agile by itself isn’t enough anymore. The world’s moving too fast, customers expect too much, and the margin for “meh” is microscopic.

But if you pair Agile with integrated, actionable, non-chaotic data? That’s where the magic happens. That’s how you build smarter, faster, and actually make customers happy before they consider switching to your competitor’s budget version with slightly better onboarding emails.

So go ahead—ditch the data silos, bring your teams into the same conversation, and let your users (even the silent ones) show you the way forward.

Just… maybe don’t ignore those ignored emails next time. They’re probably trying to tell you something.