Our posts by Stefan Wolpers

Stefan—based in Berlin, Germany—has been working for 14-plus years as an agile coach, Scrum Master, and Product Owner. He is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org. He has developed B2C as well as B2B software, for startups as well as corporations, including a former Google subsidiary. Stefan curates the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and organizes the Agile Camp Berlin, a Barcamp for coaches and other agile practitioners.
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Food for Agile Thought #321: Product Sprawl, Premature Convergence, Agile Coaches—A Family Tree, The Empathy Map

TL; DR: Product Sprawl, Premature Convergence — Food for Agile Thought #321

Welcome to the 321st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,718 peers. This week, we look under the hood of many presumably well-planned products only to discover product sprawl. Also, we point to the fact that the term ‘Agile Coach’ covers a whole family of roles, and we share results of a study that sheds new light on team autonomy: Teams should choose either teammates or ideas but not both.

We then explain what happens when a team decides on a direction or tactic too early, and we compare the two different concepts of product-led and engineering-led organizations to create value. Moreover, we listen to Melissa Perri talking to David Bland, covering how to identify experiment-worthy assumptions, deal with slow feedback, and generally walk the (experiments) walk. Finally, we provide a practical introduction to the preferred discovery and alignment tool to help people get on the same page.

Lastly, we share lessons learned from Redgate Software’s deliberate reteaming process and the results from a survey of ‘100 industry participants on their perception of the benefits and challenges of adopting the SAFe framework.’

Food for Agile Thought #321: Product Sprawl, Premature Convergence, Agile Coaches—A Family Tree, The Empathy Map—Age-of-Product.com
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📺 Daniel Stillman: Designing Powerful Questions to help you Coach, Create, Connect and Lead — Hands-on Agile 35

TL; DR: Designing Powerful Questions with Daniel Stillman

Powerful Conversations are the environment that drives change. Learn from Daniel Stillman how designing powerful questions helps you coach, create, connect, and lead from the 35th Hands-on Agile meetup of October 5, 2021.

📺 Watch the video with Daniel Stillman now: Hands-on Agile #35: Designing Powerful Questions to help you Coach, Create, Connect and Lead.

Daniel Stillman: Designing Powerful Questions to help you Coach, Create, Connect and Lead — Hands-on Agile 35 — Age-of-Product.com
Continue reading 📺 Daniel Stillman: Designing Powerful Questions to help you Coach, Create, Connect and Lead — Hands-on Agile 35

Food for Agile Thought #320: Change — The Core Belief Model, Agile Principles, The Innovation Culture Formula, Five ‘WHYs’ Done Correctly

TL; DR: The Core Belief Model, Agile Principles — Food for Agile Thought #320

Welcome to the 320th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,679 peers. This week, we point at the importance of an organization’s mindset as the starting point for any meaningful transformation, introducing the Core Belief Model. Also, we learn from McKinsey’s interview of six bp leaders on their learnings and reflections regarding a successful transformation, and we delve into the basics of ‘agile,’ from ‘starting with Why’ to the people factor to the perils of shielding teams from clients.

We then delve into the magic math behind an organizational culture where innovation thrives and into the differences between a PoC, a prototype, and an MVP. Also, we sketch four critical negotiations for product managers, from the overly optimistic salesperson to the executive with an ‘excellent’ idea, and we share a new canvas for the jobs-to-be-done framework to help you avoid unnecessary pivoting and churn.

Lastly, we appreciate Richard Kasperowski interviewing Mary and Tom Poppendieck on what you can do to keep your team together in this challenging time, and we share eight games to hack your culture to unlock high performance. Moreover, we learn that Péter Horváth believes that you should not simply ask ‘why’ five times in a row — for multiple psychological reasons.

Food for Agile Thought #320: Change — The Core Belief Model, Agile Principles, The Innovation Culture Formula, Five ‘WHYs’ Done Correctly — Age-of-Product.com
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What Capacity Check? — Making Your Scrum Work #23

TL; DR: Ignoring the Capacity Check during Sprint Planning

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Since Scrum is an intentionally incomplete framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. For example, the Developers are ignoring a capacity check during the Sprint Planning, and as a result, the Scrum team creates a Sprint Goal that most likely cannot be accomplished.

Join me and delve into the effects of this trust-shattering practice in less than 80 seconds.

What Capacity Check? — Making Your Scrum Work #23 — Age-of-Product.com
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Food for Agile Thought #319: 20 Product Prioritization Techniques, Overengineering Can Kill Your Product, The Simplified Scrum Guide, Free OKR Tracking Tool

TL; DR: 20 Product Prioritization Techniques, The Simplified Scrum Guide — Food for Agile Thought #319

Welcome to the 319th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,623 peers. This week, we point to an epic guide on 20 product prioritization techniques, and we summarize seven lessons learned on change; from change is happening anyway to you never know when your efforts will pay off. Also, we point to an ‘extremely simplified definition of the Scrum framework,’ primarily based on the SG 2020 with a bit of the 2017 edition.

We then delve into gold-plating and its consequences, and we share Lenny Rachitsky’s definition of the job of a product manager, from delivering business impact to solving the most impactful customer problems. Moreover, we follow Teresa Torres when she suggests avoiding hands-offs between the product trio leading discovery and the team building the product.

Lastly, we praise the best-designed ‘thinking tool’ in history; we share Jeff Gothelf’s free OKR tracking spreadsheet using Google Docs, and we provide a good primer on how a statistical method can contribute to your team’s forecasting quality.

Food for Agile Thought #319: 20 Product Prioritization Techniques, Overengineering Can Kill Your Product, The Simplified Scrum Guide, Free OKR Tracking Tool — Age-of-Product.com
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📺 Richard Kasperowski: Core Protocols for High-Performance Teams — Hands-on Agile 34

TL; DR: High-Performance Teams: Core Protocols with Richard Kasperowski

Want fabulous teams that build great products? Great teams don’t happen by accident. However, they don’t have to take a long time to build either. Learn more from Richard Kasperowski on employing core protocols for psychological safety and emotional intelligence from this Hands-on Agile session.

📺 Watch the video with Richard Kasperowski now: Hands-on Agile #34: Core Protocols for Psychological Safety.

Hands-on Agile #34, Sept 7, 2021: Core Protocols for Psychological Safety — Richard Kasperowski — Age-of-Product.com
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