Stefan Wolpers

Food for Agile Thought #496: Meeker’s AI Trends, Product Model Transformation Teams, Developing Product Sense, Scrum Guide 2025

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-06-06 News

TL; DR: Meeker’s AI Trends — Food for Agile Thought #496

Welcome to the 496th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,588 peers. This week, Mary Meeker explores AI trends in a massive presentation and how it is reshaping industries faster than the Internet ever did, with massive adoption and investment. Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion discuss selecting ideal pilot teams for transforming toward a product operating model, while Itamar Gilad builds on Marty Cagan’s concept by identifying eight core functions of empowered organizations. Charlie Guo humorously outlines how to fail at adopting AI, and Peter Yang compares Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini across key use cases, each excelling in different areas.

Next, Christina Wodtke shows how product sense can be trained through deliberate practice and reflection. Jake Bowen-Bate defends the product triad model amid rising AI role blending. Also, Geoffrey A. Fowler highlights Claude’s lead in AI reading tests, and Thomas Ptacek critiques LLM skeptics in software. Janna Bastow shares examples of practical acceptance criteria to improve clarity, reduce scope creep, and enhance product delivery across teams.

Lastly, Jeff Sutherland, John Anthony Coleman, and Ralph Jocham unveil the Scrum Guide Expansion Pack for today’s complex realities. Moreover, Maarten Dalmijn champions fluid team roles over rigid Scrum labels. Laurianne McLaughlin and M. Shawn Read highlight essential AI-era leadership traits. Finally, Steven Sinofsky reframes AI as another disruptive abstraction. Jason Cohen breaks down three viable, strategic pricing models.

Food for Agile Thought #496: Meeker’s AI Trends, Product Model Transformation, Developing Product Sense, Scrum Guide 2025 — Age-of-Product.com

Instilling Agility, Common Strategy Mistakes, Disempowered Teams — Hands-on Agile 2025

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-06-01 Agile and ScrumVideos

TL; DR: Johanna Rothman, Roman Pichler, and Maarten Dalmijn speaking at Hands-on Agile 2025

The third batch of videos of Hands-On Agile 2025 is in, and you don’t want to miss them: Johanna Rothman warns against fake “Agile,” urging a focus on genuine agility by choosing fit-for-purpose lifecycles and improving feedback loops. At the same time, Roman Pichler outlines five common product strategy mistakes and how to avoid them for better product outcomes, and Maarten Dalmijn highlights systemic blockers to empowered teams and advocates for shifting from rules to cultivating environments that enable high performance.

Instilling Agility, Common Strategy Mistakes, Disempowered Teams: Johanna Rothman, Roman Pichler, and Maarten Dalmijn speaking at Hands-on Agile 2025 — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #495: State of Enterprise AI 2025, Reinventing Yourself, GenAI-Enabled Feature Factory, Good Enough Agile’s End

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-05-30 News

TL; DR: State of Enterprise AI 2025 — Food for Agile Thought #495

Welcome to the 495th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,598 peers. This week, Eden Kung explores how early AI adopters gain a strategic edge through agent-based productivity and decision-making, according to Box’s State of Enterprise AI 2025 report. Janna Bastow advocates making product ideation a continuous habit to align with strategy and customer needs, and Afonso Franco interviews Alex Osterwalder on transforming Strategyzer and leading innovation. Grant Harvey analyzes Claude 4’s capabilities and quirks, while Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen highlight Dario Amodei’s warning about AI-driven white-collar job loss.

Next, Paweł Huryn shares a rich AI PM roadmap for building products without coding, and Scott Sehlhorst urges outcome-focused thinking. Also, Mike Cottmeyer and Len Greski explore sustainable agility; Louis Columbus uncovers shadow AI copilots reshaping consulting, and Magnus Hedemark details Duolingo’s AI-first failure, revealing the risks of replacing instead of partnering with human expertise.

Lastly, Mark Levison cautions against using GenAI to automate away Scrum collaboration, urging smarter PO-led enhancement, and David Burkus shares strategies for dealing with bad bosses. Noam Segal and Lenny Rachitsky uncover widespread burnout in tech, while Alex Ewerlöf highlights how generalist teams boost delivery. Finally, Doc Norton urges replacing rigid “best practices” with adaptive, learning-focused “leading practices.”

Food for Agile Thought #495: State of Enterprise AI 2025, Reinventing Yourself, GenAI-Enabled Feature Factory— 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 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

Food for Agile Thought #494: AI Success Framework for Organizations, Impact over Metrics, Prototyping Has Changed, Beyond Agile with FAANG

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-05-23 News

TL; DR: AI Success Framework for Organizations — Food for Agile Thought #494

Welcome to the 494th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,602 peers. This week, Ethan Mollick introduces a powerful Leadership-Lab-Crowd-based AI Success Framework for organizational change. Greg Nudelman boldly recommends replacing ego-bound product managers to boost innovation; guess what he suggests. Also, Aparna Chennapragada, CPO at Microsoft, tells Lenny Rachitsky why AI prototyping and NLX are reshaping the PM role, Dan Shipper reviews Claude 4 Opus, and Nick McGreivy reveals the limits of AI in scientific discovery.

Next, Andres Glusman tells Leah Tharin how failed A/B tests fuel SaaS growth. Aakash Gupta spotlights Andy Carroll’s no-code AI prototyping in a comprehensive video session, while Simon Willison warns of the hidden trade-offs of ChatGPT’s memory. Also, Brian Rain dissects why FAANG giants outgrew Agile, and Mark Levison debunks GenAI as a Scrum Master replacement, emphasizing its risks to team dynamics and core agile values.

Lastly, Pawel Brodzinski reminds us that autonomy without alignment breeds chaos, not progress. David Mack critiques AI-led interviews as a dehumanizing new trend, and Christina Wodtke urges a shift from metrics to meaningful outcomes. Finally, Johanna Rothman shares how goal-driven, networked, and supported autonomous teams fuel faster delivery and continuous learning.

Food for Agile Thought #494: AI Success Framework, Impact over Metrics, AI Prototyping, Beyond Agile with FAANG — Age-of-Product.com

Agile’s Quarter-Century Crisis: Why We’re Still Failing 25 Years After the Manifesto

by Stefan Wolpers | 2025-05-18 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Agile Failure at Corporate Level

The data couldn’t be more supportive: Despite 25 years of the Agile Manifesto, countless books, a certification industry, conferences, and armies of consultants, we’re collectively struggling to make Agile work. My recent survey, although not targeting Agile failure, still reveals systemic dysfunctions that persist across organizations attempting to implement Agile practices:

Impediment #1: Leadership disconnect (33 % of respondents cite management issues).
Impediment #2: Missing product vision (12 % of respondents can’t see the “why”).
Impediment #3: Cultural resistance (12 % of respondents report mindset barriers).

Agile Failure at Corporate Level Is A Quarter-Century Crisis: Why We’re Still Failing 25 Years After the Manifesto — Age-of-Product.com.