TL; DR: Rebels Spark Ideas, CSPO Pathology—Food for Agile Thought #296
Welcome to the 296th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 31,704 peers. This week, we acknowledge that rebels spark ideas, and we consider whether OKRs can restore purpose to agile teams and free them from the tyranny of the Product Backlog. Moreover, we get an inside view of how Youtube managed its early hyper-growth, and we point at the advantages of using low-code tooling to build software: Iterating faster.
We then address why the tech industry has such a high proportion of weak product managers and product leaders. We pitch the advantages of collaborative decision-making, leveraging both stakeholders’ and developers’ expertise while creating a shared understanding. Also, we share three tactics that have proven to impact getting buy-in from team members significantly.
Lastly, we enjoy an interview with Christina Wodtke on how OKR can help product managers accomplish more, and we get curious about a new Scrum software: “HappyStack is a Scrum project software tool for developers: Backlog, Sprint Planning, Standups, Reviews, and Retros done the right way.”
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue #295?
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Rebels Spark Ideas
and (via BBC Worklife): 'Positive deviants': Why rebellious workers spark great ideas
Organizations tend to see rebels as troublemakers. Loizos Heracleous and David Robson believe that rebels spark ideas and suppressing their ideas could backfire.
➿ Agile & Scrum
(via InfoQ): Reawakening Agile with OKRs?
Allan Kelly thinks that OKRs can restore purpose to agile teams and free them from the tyranny of the Product Backlog.
(via Coda.io): Rituals for hypergrowth: An inside look at how YouTube scaled
Shishir Mehrotra provides an inside view of how Youtube managed its early hypergrowth, from planning to organizing meetings.
(via Stack Overflow): Using low-code tools to iterate products faster
Karl Hughes points at the advantages of using low-code tooling to build software: Iterating faster.
🎓 🖥 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM I Certificate — Live Virtual Class: June 15-18, 2021
Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this official Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master training class, leading to and including the industry-recognized PSM I certification. The training is designed as a live virtual class of four sessions from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm CEST and will be offered in German.
Learn more: 🖥 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Master Training w/ PSM I Certificate — Live Virtual Class: June 15-18, 2021.
Kundenstimmen: “The class with Stefan was very well structured, delivering a helpful hands-on approach to all the Scrum basics. He managed to cover participants with different levels of expertise and from various fields easily and delivered knew knowledge and value to all of them from my point of view. The culture during these four days was excellent, so that everyone felt capable to speak up. Very much worth the invested time and money!” (Link.)
👉 From time to time, we can offer last-minute seats for training classes at cost to individuals who do not have access to a corporate training budget. If you like to be notified about these opportunities, please register here.
🎯 Product
(via svpg): The CSPO Pathology
In this article, Marty Cagan addresses why the tech industry has such a high proportion of weak product managers and product leaders.
: Making Effective Product Decisions: Tips for Deciding with Stakeholders and Dev Teams
Roman Pichler pitches the advantages of collaborative decision-making, leveraging both stakeholders’ and developers’ expertise while creating a shared understanding.
: Getting buy-in
Shivani Berry shares three tactics that she has found to impact getting buy-in from team members significantly.
📯 Three Essential Agile Failure Patterns in 7:31 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #12
There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. When Scrum becomes an element of an agile transformation, the following three common essential agile failure patterns prove to be an exceptionally tough nut to crack for any Scrum Master.
📺 Join me and explore the consequences of foreseeable failure patterns and what you can do about them in a little more than seven minutes.
Update: I am running a poll on LinkedIn—join the voting: “What is your top agile failure pattern in organizations?”
Learn more: Three Essential Agile Failure Patterns in 7:31 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #12.
🛠 Tools & Measuring
: HappyStack: A Scrum Planning Software That Delivers A Staggering Productivity Increase
“HappyStack is a Scrum project software tool for developers: Backlog, Sprint Planning, Standups, Reviews, and Retros done the right way.”
and : 🎙 Better OKRs, with the person who wrote the original OKR book
Chad McAllister interviews Christina Wodtke on how OKR can help product managers accomplish more.
📅 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:
See all upcoming classes here.
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.
📺 Join 2,900-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:
- 🆕 Agile Camp Berlin 2021: Real Cross-functional Teams for Creating real and better Products with Jutta Eckstein and Maryse Meinen.
- Hands-on Agile #30: Making Your Scrum Work—The Product Backlog Forensic Analysis.
- Scrum Guide 2020: Eight Remarkable Changes — Hands-on Agile #28.
✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about how Rebels Spark Ideas — Join the 10,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community
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