Age of Product’s Food for Thought of March 6th, 2016 covers innovation & economics, the concept of design sprints, and questions the state of Lean startup. It also provides a PDF to detect cargo cult agile in the organization, covers trends in product discovery, bloatware and feature creep. It covers better product roadmap techniques, leadership when scaling agile, how to start an agile transition at the enterprise level. Last, but not least, #31 deals with the dark side of Scrum, the psychology of team, and contains a great interview with Marc Andreessen and Clayton Christensen on competence and disruption.
The Sunday Treat
and on why not incompetence, but competence, causes companies to be disrupted (via Andreessen Horowitz): a16z Podcast: Disruption in Business… and Life – Andreessen Horowitz
, former Harvard Business School professor, on how Google is creating a wholly new subspecies of capitalism, a systemic coherent new logic of accumulation: Google as a Fortune Teller The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism
From the Blog
: Cargo Cult Agile: The ‘State Of Agile’ Checklist For Your Organization
Use a simply questionnaire with 25 questions—simply download the PDF–on daily agile issues to spark a discussion on the healthy of 'agile' in your organization.
Product & Lean
(via FiveThirtyEight): The Next Amazon (Or Apple, Or GE) Is Probably Failing Right Now
The author on the two lessons, Amazon taught economists: Its success was unpredictable and innovative companies can impact the whole economy.
(via Silicon Valley Product Group): Discovery Sprints
A discovery sprint is a one week time-box of product discovery work, designed to tackle at least one substantial problem or risk in your product's definition.
(via Startup Daily): Is the lean startup dead?
The author asks: "Is the lean startup always correct?" and voices his doubts on the general applicability of the methodology outside of Silicon Valley.
: The Rise of Modern Product Discovery
Product discovery, on the other hand, has been much slower to mature. The adoption of the associated practices has been slow and uneven.
(via Hubspot): The 5 Whys Of Feature Bloat
It’s just simple arithmetic. We add more than we subtract.
Most of the cost for a feature is not in the initial development but in the long-tail of time after it is launched.
: Video: The Hunt for Product/Market Fit
The hunt for finding product/market fit in an early-stage startup is an elusive one, often fraught with chaos, and certainly never easy
Agile & Scrum
(via InfoQ): Leadership in Scaling Agile and Organizational Change
Simon Powers is mapping the values, principles, tools and frameworks available to Agile leadership, uncovering the true purpose of Agile and the ultimate role of the Agile coach.
on motivation, approach & evaluation (via Scrum Alliance): 20 Questions to Ask When Planning an Agile Transformation
(via Medium): The Dark Side of Scrum: 2 Big Mistakes You Should Stop Doing
(via Hubspot): The Psychology of Teams: 9 Lessons on How Happy, Efficient Teams Really Work
I researched a bit into some of the psychology and underpinnings of the most efficient, most happy team setups. Here's what I've discovered.