Age-of-Product.com

ChatGPT 4: A Bargain for Scrum Practitioners?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-03-19 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: ChatGPT 4: A Bargain for Scrum Practitioners?

When OpenAI released its new LLM model GPT-4 last week, I could not resist and signed up for $20 monthly. I wanted to determine whether ChatGPT 4 is superior to its predecessor, which left a good impression in recent months; see my previous articles on Scrum, Agile, and ChatGPT.

I decided to run three comparisons, using the identical prompt to trigger answers from the new GPT-4 and previous GPT-3.5 models. Read on and learn what happened. It was not a foregone conclusion.

ChatGPT 4: A Bargain for Scrum Practitioners? — Age-of-Product.com

The Scrum Master Salary Report 2023

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-02-13 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: The Scrum Master Salary Report 2023 — How Do You Compare?

The Scrum Master Salary Report 2023 is the fourth edition of the industry survey after 2017, 2019, and 2022. This free report is based on the answers of 1,143 participants globally. If you are considering a career decision this year, maybe, whether you should join the industry as a junior Scrum Master or move to a new organization or go independent, you will find the report’s information beneficial.

By the way, the average salary of the participants in the survey is US-$80,995, with a standard deviation of about US-$53,700. In the complete report, you will find more detailed information; download your copy below.

Scrum Master Salary Report 2023 — Age-of-Product.com

ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Developers

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-16 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum Practitioners

Last week, I ran an “interview” with ChatGPT as an applicant for a fictitious Scrum Master position based on questions from Scrum Master Interview Guide. (See below.) While the overall results were broadly acceptable, I thought that changing the ChatGPT prompts might deliver better results. So, this time, I chose to present ChatGPT with three everyday scenarios based on more comprehensive prompts. Lo and behold, it worked very well.

Think twice if you still believe this technology is a fad or a toy. Instead, grab a cup of coffee and read for yourself.

ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Developers — Age-of-Product.com

A ChatGPT Job Interview for a Scrum Master Position

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-09 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: A ChatGPT Job Interview for a Scrum Master Position

Can a large language model, not specializing in anything “agile,” pass a screening interview for a Scrum Master position? In this ChatGPT job interview, I put OpenAI’s latest generative AI to the test. I took several questions from the 73 Scrum Master Interview Questions guide, see below, covering the whole spectrum from the broad picture to more specific questions, only answerable with hands-on experience on the interviewee’s side.

So, read on and learn whether Scrum Masters will soon be replaced with a chatbot.

A ChatGPT Job Interview for a Scrum Master Position — Age-of-Product.com

Free Ebook: 73 Scrum Master Interview Questions to Identify Suitable Candidates

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-06-17 Featured Agile and Scrum

Scrum Master Interview: Demand Creates Supply and the Job Market for Agile Practitioners is No Exception

Scrum has proven time and again to be the most popular framework for software development. Given that software is eating the world, a seasoned Scrum Master is nowadays in high demand. And that demand causes the market-entry of new professionals from other project management branches, probably believing that reading one or two Scrum books will be sufficient. Which makes any Scrum Master interview a challenging task.

Suppose you are looking to fill a Scrum Master position in your organization. In that case, you may find the following Scrum Master interview questions helpful to identify the right candidate. They are derived from my sixteen years of practical experience with XP and Scrum, serving both as Product Owner and Scrum Master, and my training experience as a Professional Scrum Trainer with Scrum.org. Also, I have interviewed dozens of Scrum Master candidates on behalf of my clients.

So far, this Scrum Master interview guide has been downloaded more than 25,000 times.

73 Scrum Master Interview Questions to Identify Suitable Candidates — Age-of-Product.com

The Scrum Master Salary Report 2022

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-01-24 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: The Scrum Master Salary Report 2022 — How Do You Compare?

The Scrum Master Salary Report 2022 is the third edition of the industry survey after 2017 and 2019. This free report is based on the answers of 1,113 participants globally. If you are considering a career decision this year, maybe, whether you should join the industry as a junior Scrum Master or move to a new organization or go independent, you will find the report’s information beneficial.

By the way, the average salary of the participants in the survey is $83,687, with a standard deviation of about $48,700. In the complete report, you will find more detailed information; download your copy below.

Moreover, we are considering creating a statistical model to suggest further career steps: The “Scrum Master Salary Toolkit.”

Scrum Master Salary Report 2022 — Free Download from Age-of-Product.com

Hiring: 82 Scrum Product Owner Interview Questions to Avoid Agile Imposters

by Stefan Wolpers | 2021-09-26 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: 82 Product Owner Interview Questions to Avoid Imposters

If you are looking to fill a position for a Product Owner in your organization, you may find the following 82 interview questions useful to identify the right candidate. They are derived from my sixteen years of practical experience with XP and Scrum, serving both as Product Owner and Scrum Master and interviewing dozens of Product Owner candidates on behalf of my clients.

So far, this Product Owner interview guide has been downloaded more than 10,000 times.

82 Product Owner Interview Questions to Avoid Imposters — Age-of-Product.com

📅 Upcoming Scrum Training Classes, Liberating Structures Workshops, and Events

by Stefan Wolpers | 2020-10-10 Featured Workshops

TL; DR: Scrum Training Classes, Liberating Structures Workshops, and Events

Age-of-Product.com’s parent company — Berlin Product People GmbH — offers Scrum training classes authorized by Scrum.org, Liberating Structures workshops, and hybrid training of Professional Scrum and Liberating Structures. The training classes are offered both in English and German.

Check out the upcoming timetable of training classes, workshops, meetups, and other events below and join your peers.

Upcoming Scrum and Liberating Stuctures training classes and workshops — Berlin Product People GmbH

Agile Metrics — The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

by Stefan Wolpers | 2020-08-23 Featured Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Agile Metrics

Suitable agile metrics reflect either a team’s progress in becoming agile or your organization’s progress in becoming a learning organization.

At the team level, qualitative agile metrics often work better than quantitative metrics. At the organizational level, this is reversed: quantitative agile metrics provide better insights than qualitative ones.

Food for Agile Thought #385: ChatGPT in Product Development, Organizational Change Patterns, The Art of the User Story, Do We Need Sprint Goals?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-03-24 News

TL; DR: ChatGPT in Product Development — Food for Agile Thought #385

Welcome to the 385th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 45,612 (1) peers. This week, we delve into ChatGPT in product development, pointing to what ChatGPT can and cannot do. Also, John Cutler asked some friends a simple question: “How does change actually happen at your company,” and we explain the relationship between organizational design and an organization’s size. Moreover, we learn how to deal with controversial topics that “elicit strong emotions, have little or no effort invested into resolution, and unequal participation” as a coach.

Then, we dive into the challenges of integrating UX research and Scrum and what a token for discussion — also known as a user story — has to do with it while questioning the utility of strictly adhering to the mandate of employing a Sprint Goal every single Sprint. Also, we learn how Fender, the famous guitar maker, overcame its existence-threatening churn rate among new customers and reflect on why larger organizations quickly become less innovative and what autonomous teams and ‘saying no’ have to do with it.

Finally, we check out ChatGPT 4 for Scrum practitioners; we report on a recent analysis of how OpenAI’s GPT technology could affect the workforce and walk you through the current ChatGPT ecosystem, helping everyone to understand why it has been called AI’s iPhone moment.

Food for Agile Thought #385: ChatGPT in Product Development, Organizational Change Patterns, The Art of the User Story, Do We Need Sprint Goals? — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #384: The Decline of the Agile Brand, Product Managers Devs Don’t Hate, Product Core Competencies, Scrum a Natural Pattern?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-03-17 News

TL; DR: The Decline of the Agile Brand — Food for Agile Thought #384

Welcome to the 384th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 45,437 (1) peers. This week, we listen to Brett Maytom and Michael Küsters on the decline of the Agile brand. Moreover, we explore whether Scrum is not only applied empiricism but also “some sort of natural pattern” before Seth Godin suggests tried and tested practices to help you maneuver complex projects, from “budgets are a tool, not a weapon” to “heroism is more fun but less reliable than good planning.” Moreover, we describe four effectiveness-impacting biases, from the urgency effect to the planning fallacy.

Then, we sketch a developer-friendly role model of a product manager, from demonstrating evident expertise to helping with the dirty work, which pairs well with Marty Cagan’s concept of roles of an empowered product team. Next, Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion discuss the responsibility of empowered product teams for their outcomes, while Lenny Rachitsky interviews Stanford University professor and author Christina Wodtke on how OKRs can help your team achieve better results.

Finally, we share a bunch of primers on user story mapping, planning poker and story points, and practical user research. Lastly, we ask: Can wisdom from the past still be relevant to today’s VUCA-determined world? Is there something like a Stoic Scrum Master?

The Stoic Scrum Master

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-03-13 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: The Stoic Scrum Master – Making Your Scrum Work (30)

Can wisdom from the past still be relevant to today’s VUCA-determined world? I started reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations some time ago and found it intriguing; maybe it applies to “Agile?” In other words: is there something like a Stoic Scrum Master?

If I understand Stoicism correctly, it is about living a life of virtue, which comprises wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. (All of those can be further subdivided, see Stoic Ethics.) For whatever reason, I felt reminded of Scrum Values and thought: could it be that the first principles of “agile” haven’t been defined by the Agile Manifesto but by “Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE?”

So, I embarked on a fun exercise of asking our beloved LLM to create an essay that applies Stoicism to Scrum, notably the Stoic Scrum Master.

The Stoic Scrum Master — Making Your Scrum Work #30 — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #383: Building Products without Value, Developers Talking to Customers, Marty Cagan’s Product Model, Roadmap Questionnaire

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-03-10 News

TL; DR: Building Products without Value — Food for Agile Thought #383

Welcome to the 383rd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 37,076 peers. This week, Jeff Patton attempts to explain why organizations “irrationally and addictively” build products without value. In addition, we address a controversial topic that might help alleviate the “no real value” problem: writing good code requires more technical skills; Developers also need to talk to their customers. Also, improving Product Backlog management in Scrum might support avoiding becoming focused on merely shipping stuff.

Then, we present a “set of principles, practices, and competencies” that together represent the best tech-powered companies’ way of working, bolstered by a “list of potentially helpful questions (and multiple-choice answers) to help you explore the ideas, strategies, opportunities, problems, bets, initiatives, and projects on your roadmap.” Moreover, should you consider turning your service business into a product, you don’t want to miss a podcast with “Productize” author Eisha Armstrong.

Finally, we share experts’ insight into Spotify’s approach to learning about a Squad’s health. Speaking of team health, we also reflect on why answering Scrum’s obsolete three Daily Scrum questions negatively influences your team and share a framework to “meet conversational stuckness and tensions at the appropriate level.” Lastly, we dive into an interesting question: Is it still form follows function in the digital space?

Food for Agile Thought #383: Building Products without Value, Developers Talking to Customers, Marty Cagan’s Product Model, Roadmap Questionnaire — Age-of-Product.com

The Three Daily Scrum Questions Won’t Die — Making Your Scrum Work (29)

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-03-06 Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: The Three Daily Scrum Questions Won’t Die

The Daily Scrum serves a single purpose: inspecting the progress toward the Sprint Goal by reflecting on yesterday’s learning. Then, if the need should arise, the Developers adapt their plan to accomplish the Sprint Goal. While the theory may be generally accepted, applying the idea to the practice is more challenging. One of the recurring issues is the continued popularity of the “three Daily Scrum questions” from the Scrum Guide 2017.

Let’s reflect on why answering these obsolete Daily Scrum questions negatively influences the Scrum team.

The Three Daily Scrum Questions Won’t Die — Making Your Scrum Work (29) — Age-of-Product.com