Stefan Wolpers

Food for Agile Thought #370: Calm Innovation, Delivery Dates, Participatory Decisions, Bad Bosses

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-11-25 News

TL; DR: Calm Innovation, Delivery Dates — Food for Agile Thought #370

Welcome to the 370th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,317 peers. This week, Shane Parrish interviews Tobi Lütke of Shopify about calm innovation, fighting bureaucracy, and scaling Shopify. Also, we reflect on facilitation and decision-making, including the opportunity costs of premature convergence, and learn more about the “Technology, Organization, and Product (TOP)” approach to agility. Moreover, we dissect the background of bad bosses.

Also, we learn from Ian McAllister about essential PM skills, broadening your horizon, and the importance of diversifying your skills as you move up the ladder. Speaking of which, we also share ten real-life examples of mistakes with long-term career-limiting effects for product managers, and we analyze three, unfortunately, prominent ways to trigger waste and frustration in product management.

Finally, we play our favorite broken record again: hands-off the deliberately abstract concept of story points. Moreover, we detail why teams underestimate work—learn more about hubris, dominant voices, and lacking the big picture—and advocate reducing cycle time to improve throughput and predictability. Lastly, Ken Norton shares his approach to what to do “when it’s time for some tough talk.”

Food for Agile Thought #370: Calm Innovation, Delivery Dates, Participatory Decisions, Good People to Bad Bosses — Age-of-Product.com

Shift Left: Value Creation in Scrum

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-11-21 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Value Creation in Scrum

As a tactical framework, Scrum is good at delivering Increments into customers’ hands. As we work in iterations, we probably do that several times per month, mitigating risk by closing feedback loops. Nevertheless, there is a potentially hazardous void in the framework that successful Scrum teams start plugging early: how to figure out what is worth building—product discovery—in the first place. As a result, value creation in Scrum is not as straightforward as you might have thought.

Value Creation in Scrum — Shift Left — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #369: Joy of Agility, CEOs and Product Leaders, Team Change is Inevitable, Product Data Mistakes

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-11-18 News

TL; DR: Joy of Agility — Food for Agile Thought #369

Welcome to the 369th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,291 peers. This week, we delve into the Joy of Agility and learn about the inevitability of team change and how dynamic reteaming may support dealing with it. Then we consider whether how decisions are made is more important than who makes them and why startups should have a risk roadmap, a plan for what they need to learn, from de-risking their organization to techniques used.

Also, we notice that ‘strong alignment and candid communication between a CEO and CPO’ are prerequisites for an organization’s product success. However, they can slowly dissipate when the organization is on a growth trajectory. Marty Cagan delves into multiple product management topics, from strategy, vision, and ethics, to the ways of working on a recent podcast. Additionally, Lenny Rachitsky interviews Alex Hardiman, the Chief Product Officer at the New York Times, for example, about the background of the Wordle acquisition.

Finally, we use a well-known Indian parable to point at three anti-patterns when using data, from rejecting ‘unfitting’ data to not turning disagreements into learnings. Moreover, we highlight the criticality of developing ‘inclusive mindsets to understand your own perspectives, the perspectives of others, and how they influence collaboration in design.’ Lastly, W.B. explores fundamental limitations to A/B tests that many businesses fail to consider—with possibly grave consequences.

Food for Agile Thought #369: Joy of Agility, CEOs and Product Leaders, Team Change is Inevitable, Product Data Mistakes — Age-of-Product.com

Scrum Tools and Practices to Enhance an Incomplete Framework, Part 1

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-11-14 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Scrum Tools, Part 1

“The Scrum framework is purposefully incomplete, […].” (Source.) This half-sentence is probably one of the more often misinterpreted statements of the Scrum Guide. On the one side, it defines the necessity to enhance Scrum with other practices and tools. On the other side, it is the reason that so many attempts to practice Scrum are simply botched, resulting in ScrumBut versions of epic diversity. So, let’s look at proven Scrum tools and practices enhancing a purposefully incomplete framework without defying or negating its first principles.

Please note that the following Scrum tools and practices list is not complete. Please feel free to add more suggestions by commenting.

Scrum Tools and Practices to Enhance an Incomplete Framework — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #368: Successful Product Development, Gracefully Firing People, Mental Models to Help Kill Projects, Dysfunction Mapping

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-11-11 News

TL; DR: Successful Product Development — Food for Agile Thought #368

Welcome to the 368th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,252 peers. This week, we delve into the importance of opportunity, output, outcome, and impact for successful product development. Moreover, we describe a step-by-step process on how to identify and subsequently also rectify dysfunctions within organizations. Then, Farnam Street points at essential leadership lessons from Michael Abrashoff’s book ‘It’s Your Ship,’ from rewarding risk-takers to skipping commend-and-control to letting go of your ego.

Also, referring to Astro Teller, CEO of Google’s moonshot factory, Annie Duke describes ways that help to kill innovation projects responsibly, and Marty Cagan defines the foundation of empowered product teams concerning customers, stakeholders, and engineers. Additionally, we advocate that using Gherkin as a notation for user stories will significantly improve communication with engineers.

Finally, Julie Zhuo lists five values of being data-informed, from accepting probabilities to setting verifiable goals, and we share an approach to answering a classic leadership question on the nature of a metric’s plunge. Also, given the turbulent week at Twitter, Lenny Rachitsky interviews Matt Mochary on how to best approach layoffs without botching the process and killing culture and innovation with one stone.

Food for Agile Thought #368: Successful Product Development, Gracefully Firing People, Mental Models to Help Kill Projects, Dysfunction Mapping — Age-of-Product.com

Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-11-07 Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: Product Owner & Product Manager Salary Report 2022

How do you compare? The Product Owner and Product Manager Salary Report 2022 is based on 500-plus replies from practitioners gathered globally during the 3rd and 4th quarter of 2022. Learn more about your Product Owner or Product Manager career opportunities for free.

By the way, the average salary of our participants is $91,000, with a standard deviation of roughly $49,400. In the complete report, you will find more detailed information; download your copy below.