Stefan Wolpers

Food for Agile Thought #398: Agile Laggards, Building Trust and Influence, Moving From Output to Outcome, Engineers Product People Like

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-06-23 News

TL; DR: Agile Laggards — Food for Agile Thought #398

Welcome to the 398th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 47,569 peers. This week, we challenge pessimism around agile laggards, arguing that they are potentially more advantaged than their precursors. Also, we explore the benefits of Continuous Delivery and advocate that high-performing teams do not stop at the ‘run‘ level. Instead, the real magic happens with full ownership. Speaking of owning your process: if you take Scrum seriously, employing agile coaches next to Scrum Masters is unnecessary.

Then, we uncover a profound challenge faced by Product Owners: fitting into their organizations and double down on the issue with Leah Tharin, Teresa Torres, and Hope Gurion analyzing how to move organizations and teams from output to outcome. Moreover, we ask regarding strategy and competitors: should we pay attention to them? Also, Anthony Murphy explores the critical components of trust in stakeholder management, offering actionable strategies to establish and foster it.

Finally, Ash Maurya discusses entrepreneurs’ challenges in juggling big-picture vision and immediate action, suggesting skipping product roadmaps in favor of traction roadmaps. John Cutler explores a theory about companies stuck in a ‘doing OK’ basin, neither thriving nor failing, slowly drifting towards obscurity. At the same time, Seth Godin reflects on projects which are promises involving coordination for future value delivery.

Food for Agile Thought #398: Agile Laggards, Building Trust and Influence, Moving From Output to Outcome, Engineers Product People Like — Age-of-Product.com

Why Employing Agile Coaches next to Scrum Masters Is Unnecessary

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-06-19 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Employing Agile Coaches next to Scrum Masters?

Often, when organizations employ agile coaches and Scrum Masters, we can observe that agile coaches work at an organizational level. In contrast, Scrum Masters work in a tactical role at the team level in a “delivery manager capacity,” which defies the Scrum Guide’s concept of accountabilities.

However, if you take Scrum seriously, this approach has no upside. Here are eight reasons for empowering your Scrum Masters to work with the organization.

Disclaimer: I acknowledge, though, that “agile coach” is a helpful keyword for positioning yourself as an agile practitioner; potential employers and clients search for this term.

Why Employing Agile Coaches next to Scrum Masters Is Unnecessary — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #397: From Tech Debt to Tech Health, Avoiding Lousy Experiments, The Drama Triangle, Including Users in UX Workshops

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-06-16 News

TL; DR: From Tech Debt to Tech Health — Food for Agile Thought #397

Welcome to the 397th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 47,417 peers.This week, we demystify technical debt, offering a tangible way to achieve tech health instead. Moreover, according to Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk’s actions at Twitter prompted industry reflection on the potential benefits of “firing hordes of middle managers,” reports Yahoo Finance. Also, Ken Norton describes Stephen Karpman’s model from the 1960s, identifying three roles people tend to assume when reacting to their environment, and we learn about fixing agile transformations in an interview with Peter Lam.

Then, Peter Yang discusses effective experimentation with Eric Metelka from Eppo, and we delve into how to build in public without revealing too much. In an epic article, Marty Cagan explores how generative AI could reshape product development, stressing the importance of embracing disruptive technologies. Also, we explore inviting users to participate directly in UX workshops and analyze into the “free to paid” conversion, often considered an indicator of business opportunities and product appeal.

Finally, Eric Chima and John Nevins Most advocate that most teams can benefit from eliminating estimations, supposedly an easy win in Agile. Moreover, we address that concerns rise over AI training on AI-created content instead of human-generated content and examine why some content engrosses us and others fail to pique our interest. We are closing this week’s edition with a simple question: How do you know your team’s Scrum Master is successful?

Food for Agile Thought #397: From Tech Debt to Tech Health, Avoiding Lousy Experiments, The Drama Triangle, Including Users in UX Workshops — Age-of-Product.com

Scrum Master Success Indicators — How Do You Compare?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-06-11 Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: Scrum Master Success Indicators

How do you know your team’s Scrum Master is successful? I identified ten Scrum Master success indicators from a team perspective, from self-sufficiency to delivering valuable Increments to embracing self-management. How Do You Compare?

Scrum Master Success Indicators — How Do You Compare? Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #396: How to Give Constructive Feedback, Cognitive Bias in Product, Learning Scrum Just-In-Time, Agile & UX: A Failed Marriage?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-06-09 News

TL; DR: Constructive Feedback Framework — Food for Agile Thought #396

Welcome to the 396th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 47,254 peers. This week, we learn about Roman Pichler’s new constructive feedback framework to help you to have difficult conversations with stakeholders, management, and team members. Moreover, we share lessons learned on ‘instilling Agile and Scrum knowledge based on a Just-In-Time strategy’ and point to the obvious: Working extra hard and overtime causes stress and burnout and will, inevitably, lead to mistakes.

Then, we delve into the psychology behind questionable decision product people make, from sunk cost fallacy to the Halo effect, and appreciate Steven Sinofsky’s epic essay on ‘patterns and practices in the creation, rise, and fall of platforms.’ Also, we analyze the intersection of artificial intelligence and product management, for example, ‘AI’s ability to emulate human cognition’ and provide insight into the effort to integrate User Experience & Design (UX) within the Agile software development frameworks: Agile & UX — a failed marriage?

Finally, we Look back at 20 years of the Double Diamond, now available in version 4.1, supporting the concept with a long list of product discovery practices, from the Concierge Test to the Fake Door Test to A/B testing. Lastly, Marc Andreessen goes all in on artificial intelligence, claiming it is a ‘way to make everything we care about better,’ and Google Cloud provides a free, curated collection of content on generative AI products and technologies.

Food for Agile Thought #396: How to Give Constructive Feedback, Cognitive Bias in Product, Learning Scrum Just-In-Time, Agile & UX: A failed marriage? — Age-of-Product.com

Scrum Master Interview Questions — ChatGPT Edition

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-06-05 Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: Can ChatGPT 4.0 Create Scrum Master Interview Questions?

Previously, I tested how ChatGPT would answer questions from the Scrum Master Interview Guide; see below. Back in January 2023, I would not have taken the next step in the Scrum Master interview process, inviting ChatGPT to a full-size interview with several Scrum team members.

So, if the GPT 3.5 or 4.0 models still need to be better to pass the interview hurdle, what about their capability to create similar interview questions? Enjoy the following article on my excursion into creating Scrum Master interview questions with ChatGPT.

Scrum Master Interview Questions — ChatGPT Edition — Age-or-Product.com