Food for Agile Thought #208: Six Sigma, Zombie Scrum Symptom Checker, Constant Failure, Timeline Roadmaps Suck

Food for Agile Thought’s issue #208—shared with 23,551 peers—sheds light on the fate of Six Sigma; we introduce the free Zombie Scrum Checker for your Scrum Team, and we address once again the cycle-time/velocity prediction issue.

We also delve into Booking.com’s experimentation culture; we learn which traps to avoid when handling payment in a B2C application, and we enjoy a Twitter rant on the uselessness of timeline roadmaps.

Lastly, we thank Ron Jeffries for pointing at the obvious: you get paid for shipping valuable software every single Sprint. Period.

Did you miss last week’s Food for Agile Thought’s issue #207?

Food for Agile Thought #208: Six Sigma, Zombie Scrum Symptom Checker, Constant Failure, Timeline Roadmaps Suck

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Scrum Guide 2020 — Download the new edition of the Scrum Guide Reordered — Age-of-Product.com

🏆 The Essential Read: The Demise Six Sigma

Oliver Staley (via Quartz): Whatever happened to Six Sigma?

Oliver Staley analyzes the fate of Six Sigma the corporate management religion that promised to take on complexity once and for all.

Agile, Scrum & Six Sigma

Ron Jeffries: No Software: No Agile, No Scrum

Ron Jeffries points at a simple truth: to be agile means to deliver valuable, working software every single Sprint or iteration.

Christiaan Verwijs (via Scrum.org): Introducing the Zombie Scrum Symptom Checker

Christiaan Verwijs and Johannes Schartau published a new free tool that you can use to diagnose your Scrum Team.

Johanna Rothman: Measure Cycle Time, Not Velocity

Johanna Rothman recommends that teams use their cycle time to see how long a task might take.

📅 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I — Berlin, October 8-9, 2019

Join your peers for this hands-on Scrum Master training, including up to two attempts at the Professional Scrum Master® I certification by Scrum.org. Learn everything about empiricism, self-organization & the ‘Definition of Done’ in two energizing days in Berlin, Oct 8-9, 2019.

📅 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I — Berlin, October 8-9, 2019

Learn more: 📅 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I — Berlin, October 8-9, 2019.

Product & Lean

(via Harvard Business Review): At Booking.com, Innovation Means Constant Failure

HBS Professor Stefan Thomke points at Booking.com, which embraced a culture where testing, experimentation, and failure are essential.

Gil Bouhnick: 10 lessons learned from asking our users to pay

Gil Bouhnick looks back at what they have learned in over a decade dealing with payment in a B2C product.

Janna Bastow (via ProdPad): Timeline roadmaps suck

Janna Bastow takes to Twitter to explain why most product roadmaps set their teams up for failure.

📯 New Post: Scrum Accountability

‘Autonomy without accountability equals anarchy’ summarizes an essential design element of any agile organization. Without these checks and balances in place any aspiration to transform an organization is likely to fail. (Or at best level out at a mechanistic level.) Learn more about how Scrum deals with accountability.

Scrum Accountability: The Boss imposes Scrum upon the Team — Age-of-Product.com

Learn more: Scrum Accountability.

📅 Scrum Training & Event Schedule

You can secure your seat for Scrum training classes, workshops, and meetups directly by following the corresponding link in the table below:

Date Class and Language City Price
🖥 🇩🇪 January 28-31, 2025 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Feburary 4-6, 2025 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile 2025: From Concept-Based to Context-Based Agility (English) Live Virtual Conference FREE
🖥 🇬🇧 February 12-13, 2025 Professional Scrum Master Advanced Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 February 27, 2025 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class (PSFS; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 March 6-April3, 2025 GUARANTEED: Align, Discover, Deliver: The Product Backlog Management Cohort Class (English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Cohort €499 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇩🇪 March 11-12, 2025 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇬🇧 March 26-27, 2025 Professional Scrum Master Advanced Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇩🇪 April 10, 2025 Professional Product Discovery and Validation Class (PPDV; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
Professional Scrum Training by PST Stefan Wolpers, Berlin  Product People

You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.


Scrum Guide Reordered Free Download Age-of-Product.com

📺 Join 1,650-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:

✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn about Demise of Six Sigma: Join the 5,975-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community

I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack Community and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.

Large scale agile: Join the Hands-on Agile Slack Group

If you like to join all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.

Scrum Master Interview Question: free download of the most popular ebook on Scrum Master job interviews — by Age-of-Product

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #207: DevOps 2019, Sprint Review Revisited, Nature of Product Teams, Influencing the Business.

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