Stefan Wolpers

The Stoic Scrum Master

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-03-13 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: The Stoic Scrum Master – Making Your Scrum Work (30)

Can wisdom from the past still be relevant to today’s VUCA-determined world? I started reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations some time ago and found it intriguing; maybe it applies to “Agile?” In other words: is there something like a Stoic Scrum Master?

If I understand Stoicism correctly, it is about living a life of virtue, which comprises wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. (All of those can be further subdivided, see Stoic Ethics.) For whatever reason, I felt reminded of Scrum Values and thought: could it be that the first principles of “agile” haven’t been defined by the Agile Manifesto but by “Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE?”

So, I embarked on a fun exercise of asking our beloved LLM to create an essay that applies Stoicism to Scrum, notably the Stoic Scrum Master.

The Stoic Scrum Master — Making Your Scrum Work #30 — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #383: Building Products without Value, Developers Talking to Customers, Marty Cagan’s Product Model, Roadmap Questionnaire

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-03-10 News

TL; DR: Building Products without Value — Food for Agile Thought #383

Welcome to the 383rd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 37,076 peers. This week, Jeff Patton attempts to explain why organizations “irrationally and addictively” build products without value. In addition, we address a controversial topic that might help alleviate the “no real value” problem: writing good code requires more technical skills; Developers also need to talk to their customers. Also, improving Product Backlog management in Scrum might support avoiding becoming focused on merely shipping stuff.

Then, we present a “set of principles, practices, and competencies” that together represent the best tech-powered companies’ way of working, bolstered by a “list of potentially helpful questions (and multiple-choice answers) to help you explore the ideas, strategies, opportunities, problems, bets, initiatives, and projects on your roadmap.” Moreover, should you consider turning your service business into a product, you don’t want to miss a podcast with “Productize” author Eisha Armstrong.

Finally, we share experts’ insight into Spotify’s approach to learning about a Squad’s health. Speaking of team health, we also reflect on why answering Scrum’s obsolete three Daily Scrum questions negatively influences your team and share a framework to “meet conversational stuckness and tensions at the appropriate level.” Lastly, we dive into an interesting question: Is it still form follows function in the digital space?

Food for Agile Thought #383: Building Products without Value, Developers Talking to Customers, Marty Cagan’s Product Model, Roadmap Questionnaire — Age-of-Product.com

The Three Daily Scrum Questions Won’t Die — Making Your Scrum Work (29)

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-03-06 Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: The Three Daily Scrum Questions Won’t Die

The Daily Scrum serves a single purpose: inspecting the progress toward the Sprint Goal by reflecting on yesterday’s learning. Then, if the need should arise, the Developers adapt their plan to accomplish the Sprint Goal. While the theory may be generally accepted, applying the idea to the practice is more challenging. One of the recurring issues is the continued popularity of the “three Daily Scrum questions” from the Scrum Guide 2017.

Let’s reflect on why answering these obsolete Daily Scrum questions negatively influences the Scrum team.

The Three Daily Scrum Questions Won’t Die — Making Your Scrum Work (29) — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #382: Avoiding Product Waste; Meaningful Product Metrics, Prompt Engineering Guide; Club Scrum?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-03-03 News

TL; DR: Avoiding Product Waste — Food for Agile Thought #382

Welcome to the 382nd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,960 peers. This week, we explore the best approaches to avoiding product waste. Also, drawing ideas from prolific experts in the field of complexity like Dave Snowden, John Cutler provides an easy ‘entry point into a discussion about complexity [and] complex systems.’ Dealing with complexity eases when an organizational culture guarantees psychological safety. We share four ways of safely creating teams, two based on trust and two based on respect. Lastly, our weekly ChatGPT dose addresses the typical workload of a Scrum Master.

Then, we share insights into metrics of Duolingo’s long game of building a product user love and share voluntarily. Moreover, Teresa Torres dives into the results of the first Continuous Discovery Habits survey and shares outstanding results; for example, shifting from outputs to outcomes. (Pair that one with Cori Widen’s article on the pitfalls of continuous discovery research.) Also, Jiaona Zhang, teaching Stanford’s graduate-level product management course, discusses careers.

Finally, we speculate on why some reject a highly successful practice: the Double Diamond. Is it just a personal agenda? Additionally, we share a primer on best employing ChatGPT for user research, from competitor analysis to defining key metrics to reaching the target audience for insights. Speaking of which: DAIR.AI created a ‘new prompt engineering guide that contains all the latest papers, learning guides, lectures, references, and tools related to prompt engineering.’

Food for Agile Thought #382: Avoiding Product Waste; Meaningful Product Metrics, Prompt Engineering Guide; Club Scrum? — Age-of-Product.com

Club Scrum: What Are You Doing all Day, ChatGPT — as a Scrum Master?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-02-27 Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: Club Scrum — You, too, ChatGPT?

A few years ago, I ran a survey to figure out what Scrum Masters serving a single Scrum team do all day. Now that we have a new kid, pardon: a new LLM, on the block, I reran the old questionnaire: Club Scrum: What Are You Doing all Day, ChatGPT — as a Scrum Master?

Based on the survey results from 2018, the normalized total amount of time spent on Scrum events, educating themselves, or coaching teammates and stakeholders, respectively, was approximately 12 hours per week, which leaves a lot of room for dealing with impediments.

Read on and learn what ChatGPT considers to be a typical workload. (Excluding the removal of impediments.)

Club Scrum: What Are You Doing all Day, ChatGPT — as a Scrum Master? Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #381: Agile Is Alive and Kicking, Sales-Led Development Problems, Innovation Budget Cuts, Show the Team the Money

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-02-24 News

TL; DR: Agile Is Alive — Food for Agile Thought #381

Welcome to the 381st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,846 peers. This week, we learn again that rumors of “Agile’s” demise are greatly exaggerated — Agile is alive. (Check out the Tip of the Week as a reply to this week’s 🍋.) Also, we delve into the history of the technical debt concept and suggest how to manage the challenge sustainably and effectively. Next, follow the money: Allan Kelly addresses a typically ignored yet essential topic in many organizations: team finances.

Then, we reflect on the problems of allocating most development work to customization while starving the core product, also known as sales-led development. Moreover, we answer a vital question many product people share today: how to sustain the innovation momentum with fewer bucks? And Elad Gil asks whether early SaaS or AI companies are ever defensible at an early stage and delivers a comprehensive list of potential ways to build a moat. Alternatively, you can also steal from aggregated a list of ‘best practices used by successful product companies.’

Finally, Deb Liu suggests changing perspective when you are in a perceived conflict: retell your story with the other as the hero, and Buffer shared their extensive study on how ‘remote workers from around the world feel about remote work.’ Lastly, Jordan Harbinger interviews Alastair Smith on dictatorship. What I find particularly interesting about the talk is why bad behavior often makes for good politics. (I felt instantly reminded of some agile transformations in the past.)