Age-of-Product.com

The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course v2 with AI: July 15, 2025

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-07-13 Featured Agile and ScrumVideos

TL; DR: The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course v2 w/ AI — Out on July 15, 2025

The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course with AI is available on July 15th, 2025, at $99 with free lifetime access to all updates. It cuts through AI hype to address real product management challenges.

Instead of treating AI as a silver bullet, it examines how Generative AI and LLMs genuinely improve Product Backlog management versus when they’re expensive distractions. It uses the practical HealthXYZ startup scenario to distinguish value-adding AI applications from organizational theater, perfect for teams ready to confront uncomfortable truths about their current backlog dysfunction.

🎓 Join the Launch of the AI-Enhanced Version 2 on July 15: Master AI-augmented Product Leadership and Unlock Capabilities Most Practitioners Don’t Even Know Are Possible Yet!

The Advanced Product Backlog Management Course v2 w/ AI — Out on July 15, 2025 — Age-of-Product.com

Harnessing Generative AI for Agile Coaching

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-07-06 Featured Agile and ScrumVideos

TL; DR: Generative AI for Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters

Discover how generative AI can supercharge Agile coaching in high-pressure environments. This webinar presents a real-world scenario where traditional coaching fails and demonstrates how AI identifies emotional cues, contradictions, and recurring pain points hidden within team dynamics.

Learn from Stefan how to reduce cognitive load, make faster, evidence-based decisions, and ethically amplify your coaching impact. Bonus: The same techniques also accelerate product discovery:

📺 Watch now to rethink your approach: How to Analyze Unstructured Interviews with AI.

How to Harness Generative AI for Agile Coaching: a step-by-step introduction by Stefan Wolpers — Age-of-Product.com

The End of “Good Enough Agile”: AI and Product Models Are Your Wake-Up Call

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-05-26 Featured Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: The End of “Good Enough Agile”

“Good Enough Agile” is ending as AI automates mere ceremonial tasks and Product Operating Models demand outcome-focused teams. Agile professionals must evolve from process facilitators to strategic product thinkers or risk obsolescence as organizations adopt AI-native approaches that embody Agile values without ritual overhead.

The End of “Good Enough Agile”: AI and Product Models Are Your Wake-Up Call; it is time to listen and learn — Age-of-Product.com

Generative AI in Agile: A Strategic Career Decision

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-03-30 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL;DR: A Harvard Study of Procter & Gamble Shows the Way

Recent research shows AI isn’t just another tool—it’s a “cybernetic teammate” that enhances agile work. A Harvard Business School study of 776 professionals found individuals using AI matched the performance of human teams, broke down expertise silos, and experienced more positive emotions during work. For agile practitioners, the choice isn’t between humans or AI but between being AI-augmented or falling behind those who are. The cost of experimentation is low; the potential career advantage, on the other hand, is substantial. A reason to embrace generative AI in Agile?

Generative AI in Agile: A Strategic Career Decision — A Harvard Study of Procter & Gamble Shows the Way — Age-of-Product.com

The Agile Prompt Engineering Framework

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-03-17 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: Bridging Agile and AI with Proper Prompt Engineering

Agile teams have always sought ways to work smarter without compromising their principles. Many have begun experimenting with new technologies, frameworks, or practices to enhance their way of working. Still, they often struggle to get relevant, actionable results that address their specific challenges. Regarding generative AI, there is a better way for agile practitioners than reinventing the wheel team by team—the Agile Prompt Engineering Framework.

Learn why it solves the challenge: a structured approach to prompting AI models designed specifically for agile practitioners who want to leverage this technology as a powerful ally in their journey.

The Agile Prompt Engineering Framework: Bridging Agile and AI with Proper Prompt Engineering — Age-of-Product.com

Getting Hired as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-02-05 Featured Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Getting Hired as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach

Are you considering a new Scrum Master or Agile Coach job? However, you are not sure that it is the right organization? Don’t worry; there are four steps of proactive research to identify suitable employers or clients for getting hired as a Scrum Master and avoid disappointment later.

I have used those four steps for years to identify organizations I would like to work with, and they never failed me. Read on and learn how to employ search engines, LinkedIn’s people search, reach out to peers in the agile community, and analyze the event markets in the quest for your next Scrum Master job.

Getting Hired as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach — Age-of-Product.com

60 ChatGPT Prompts Plus Prompt Engineering Guide for Scrum Practitioners

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-05-15 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: 60 ChatGPT Prompts for Agile Practitioners

ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for those who know how to create prompts. The simplest form of prompting ChatGPT is to feed it the task and ask for results. However, this approach is unlikely to trigger the best response from the model.

Instead, invest more time in prompt engineering, and provide ChatGPT with a better context of the situation, desired outcomes, data, constraints, etc. The following article offers a primer to creating ChatGPT prompts for Scrum practitioners to get you started running. You will learn:

Prompt engineering basics
Prompt engineering with services like PromptPerfect
Using ChatGPT for prompt engineering. (Yub, that works, too.)

Free Download 60 ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Product Managers — Age-of-Product.com

Free Ebook: 83 Scrum Master Interview Questions to Identify Suitable Candidates

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

TL; DR: The Scrum Master Interview Guide to Identify Genuine Scrum Masters

In this comprehensive Scrum Master Interview guide, we delve into 83 critical questions that can help distinguish genuine Scrum Masters from pretenders during interviews. We designed this selection to evaluate the candidates’ theoretical knowledge, practical experience, and ability to apply general Scrum and “Agile “principles effectively in real-world scenarios—as outlined in the Scrum Guide or the Agile Manifesto. Ideal for hiring managers, HR professionals, and future Scrum teammates, this guide provides a toolkit to ensure that your next Scrum Master hire is truly qualified, enhancing your team’s agility and productivity.

If you are a Scrum Master currently looking for a new position, please check out the “Preparing for Your Scrum Master Interview as a Candidate” section below.

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

Scrum Master Interview — How to Prepare Yourself to Stand Out — 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

Food for Agile Thought #502: Cultural AI Adoption, Discovery not Creation, Product Model Pilot Teams, Self-Organization as a Concept

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-07-18 News

TL; DR: Cultural AI Adoption — Food for Agile Thought #502

Welcome to the 502nd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 40,607 peers.

This week, we learn how Shopify scaled reflexive AI from memo to a movement of cultural AI adoption by empowering teams and centralizing tooling. Andrew Bosworth reframes innovation as discovering natural user behavior rather than inventing features, and Marty Cagan underscores the strategic use of pilot teams to reduce risk in product model shifts. Tim O’Reilly warns of AI’s descent into enshittification, while Mike Cohn champions structured autonomy for self-organizing teams.

Next, Andrew Ng outlines how speed, agentic workflows, and coding fluency fuel GenAI success. Sayash Kapoor and Arvind Narayanan warn that AI may accelerate junk science without structural reform, and John Cutler critiques leadership’s addiction to oversimplification. Additionally, Calvin French-Owen provides an inside view of OpenAI’s relentless pace, and Seth Godin reframes sunk costs as optional, rather than obligations.

Lastly, Catherine Connors explores storytelling as a leadership tool to build shared culture and ownership. Maarten Dalmijn cautions against outsourcing understanding to AI-generated user stories, and Addy Osmani advocates for context engineering over prompt tinkering to ensure reliable AI performance. Finally, Assaf Elovic introduces the CAIR framework, revealing that user confidence, not technical brilliance, drives AI product success.

Food for Agile Thought #502: Cultural AI Adoption, Discovery not Creation, Product Model Pilot Teams, Self-Organization — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #501: Damage by Passive AI Use, Resistance to Product Models, Trusted Product Engineers, JTBD Interview

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-07-11 News

TL; DR: Passive AI Use — Food for Agile Thought #501

Welcome to the 501st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 40,598 peers. This week, Ethan Mollick warns that passive AI use can dull creativity and critical thinking, while Johanna Rothman emphasizes that product development’s core lies in collaborative learning and flow, not code typing. David Pereira interviews PostHog’s James Hawkins on scaling through engineer autonomy and minimal control. Seth Godin explores AI’s historical parallels, and Cedric Chin distills practical insights from Jobs to be Done interviews for product strategy.

Next, Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion unpack resistance patterns in product operating model pilots and offer ways to build shared clarity. Aakash Gupta interviews Tanguy Crusson on Atlassian’s AI-powered discovery. Maarten Dalmijn critiques budgeting myths, Louis Columbus details Walmart’s scalable AI platform, and Daniel Lereya shares how Monday.com’s AI Month fostered a culture of bold, decentralized innovation at scale.

Lastly, Grant Harvey dissects Grok 4’s impressive yet troubling launch, and Elvis Saravia reframes prompt engineering as context design for LLMs. Chuck Whitten and team call for AI-led business reinvention beyond tech. Megan Saker maps product documentation’s lifecycle value, and Gregor Ojstersek, with Laura Tacho, offers a framework to measure AI’s real impact on engineering teams.

Food for Agile Thought #501: Damage by Passive AI Use, Resistance to Product Models, Trusted Product Engineers, JTBD Interview — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #500: 5C Strategy Framework, Product Enshittification, Fail Fast Culture Failure, How to Unlearn

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-07-04 News

TL; DR: 5C Strategy Framework — Food for Agile Thought #500

Welcome to the 500th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 40,612 peers. This week, Maarten Dalmijn highlights how companies often confuse comfort with strategy and offers the 5C strategy framework to foster genuine strategic thinking. Janna Bastow warns against “enshittification,” the slow death of products driven by misaligned incentives. David Pereira reframes “fail fast” as harmful, advocating for deliberate learning, while McKinsey and Thomas Claburn scrutinize the prerequisites and limits of generative and agentic AI in delivering real business value.

Next, Mike Goitein critiques the obsession with shipping speed, showing how Linear wins by polishing for quality. Richard Mironov reminds product leaders to defend user value and team integrity. Additionally, insights from MIT Sloan’s CIO Symposium reveal that leadership-induced AI failures occur when vision and human factors are ignored. Vaidheeswaran Archana warns of looming LLM cost hikes, and Andy Cleff calls for proactive, trust-based team health strategies.

Lastly, Annie Peshkam and David Dubois stress the importance of shared unlearning for progress. David Burkus urges transparent adaptability, and John Cutler rethinks value hierarchies. Finally, Brian Rain clarifies the true essence of Kanban by pointing to its “theater version,” and Diegovz introduces the RAAEE framework for tracking meaningful product impact beyond vanity metrics.

Food for Agile Thought #500: 5C Strategy Framework, Product Enshittification, Fail Fast Culture Failure, How to Unlearn — Age-of-Product.com

The Agile Paradox: Why Tactical Adoption Rarely Leads to True Transformation

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-06-29 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: The Agile Paradox

Many companies adopt Agile practices like Scrum but fail to achieve true transformation. This “Agile Paradox” occurs because they implement tactical processes without changing their underlying command-and-control structure, culture, and leadership style.

True agility requires profound systemic changes to organizational design, leadership, and technical practices, not just performing rituals. Without this fundamental shift from “doing” to “being” agile, transformations stall, and the promised benefits remain unrealized.