Stefan Wolpers

Food for Agile Thought #356: Decision-Making 2.0, Empathy in Product, Tesla’s Agile Success, North Star Framework Template

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-08-19 News

TL; DR: Decision-Making 2.0, Diamond of Participation — Food for Agile Thought #356

Welcome to the 356th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,752 peers. This week, we will learn from psychologist Gary Klein how to improve decision-making, particularly as a team, from the benefits of pre-mortems and anonymous voting to the perils of consensus. Also, we detail Tesla’s approach to agility; we explain Sam Kaner et al.’s Diamond of Participation graphic for facilitators, and we encourage you to participate in the survey for the 16th State of Agile report.

Then, we delve into empathy as the superpower of successful product people, enabling the understanding of seemingly tricky stakeholders. Moreover, we suggest to stop “using ‘product market fit’ and instead focus on delivering value to your first ten customers,” and we applaud John Cutler for sharing the template & activity library for the North Star Framework. Following up on the interview with Gary Klein, we also suggest starting your product discovery journey with a pre-mortem: Imagine it is six months later and your product went south; what caused its failure?

Finally, we analyze commonalities and differences in product teams of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google, only to return to a classic session from 2012: Marty Cagan shares lessons learned on building products that customers love.

Food for Agile Thought #356: Decision-Making 2.0, Empathy in Product, Tesla’s Agile Success, North Star Framework Template — Age-of-Product.com

Jeff Gothelf: Outcome-Based Product Planning — Hands-on Agile 43

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-08-15 Agile and ScrumVideosWebinars

TL; DR: HoA #43: Outcome-Based Product Planning w/ Jeff Gothelf

In this energizing 43rd Hands-on Agile session on outcome-based product planning, Jeff Gothelf clarified one thing: “Roadmapping is a flawed concept in the age of Agile. Maps, by their definition, are linear, and we don’t build linear products and services anymore. We build continuous systems.” Learn more about what he considers product roadmap flaws and what you can do about them.

Jeff Gothelf: Outcome-Based Product Planning — Hands-on Agile 43 — Age-of-Product.com

📺 Watch the video now: Jeff Gothelf: Outcome-Based Product Planning — Hands-on Agile 43.

Food for Agile Thought #355: Novelty Uncertainty, Data & Storytelling for Strategic Alignment, The Adoption of Innovation, How to Wardley Map

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-08-12 News

TL; DR: Novelty Uncertainty — Food for Agile Thought #355

Welcome to the 355th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,721 peers. This week, we delve into dealing with novelty uncertainty by acquiring knowledge as we move forward in a process at the heart of all agile practices. Moreover, we analyze the mechanics of how innovation moves from the fringes to the core of an organization, and we explain Richard Feynman’s seven “tricks for evaluating information.” Also, we lay out the challenges and opportunities of distributed teams, from ‘management by talk around’ to tools and practices.

Then, we explore ways of “how to go from charts and numbers to a story that will move your stakeholders” and share the principles of how engineering and product collaborate at Intercom for the benefit of customers, for example, by involving the engineers from the start. Additionally, we explore the general relationship between engineering and product management and share lessons learned, for instance, earn respect first as a product manager before you become technical.

Finally, we thank IT Revolution Press for attempting to explain the practice of creating Wardley Maps. Noorisingh Saini leads us through calculating, interpreting, and improving the lifetime value of your SaaS customers, while Natalie Rothfels, Ely Lerner, and Behzod Sirjani bust customer churn myths, from its supposed unavoidability to wrong assumptions. Lastly, Greg Satell points to a typical disadvantage of large organizations regarding innovation: “it’s often just easier to fall in line than to engage in vigorous debate.”

Food for Agile Thought #355: Novelty Uncertainty, Data & Storytelling for Strategic Alignment, The Adoption of Innovation, How to Wardley Map — Age-of-Product.com

Agile Micromanagement — Seriously? Making Your Scrum Work #27

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-08-08 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Agile Micromanagement

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Indeed, given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. For example, the Scrum Guide clearly states the importance of self-management at the Scrum team level. Nevertheless, the prevailing cause of many messed-up attempts to use Scrum result from what I call agile micromanagement, a pseudo-commitment to agile principles only to be overridden whenever it seems beneficial from a stakeholder’s or manager’s perspective.

Join me and delve into the importance of self-managing Scrum teams in less than two minutes.

Agile Micromanagement — Making Your Scrum Work #27 — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #354: Agile Forecasting, Winning Product Strategies, Measuring Trust, What Product Market Fit Feels Like

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-08-05 News

TL; DR: Agile Forecasting, Winning Product Strategies — Food for Agile Thought #354

Welcome to the 354th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,689 peers. This week, we analyze agile forecasting challenges in epic breadth, from avoiding story points to rolling wave forecasts. Also, we illustrate and quantify the impact of unfinished work to help you convince your team to ‘stop starting and start finishing,’ and we delve into decision-making practices as a group, from reversible to expensive or irreversible decisions.

Then, we listen to Lenny Rachitsky interviewing Melissa Perri on what to do when your strategy is not working: what are the signs, and how can you change direction? Moreover, we point out that ‘most strategies are a collection of assumptions,’ from certainty levels to competitor behavior. Also, we enjoy ten video clips expressing precisely that product/market-fit feeling Marc Andreessen described years ago.

Finally, we share strategies to identify and work through design and engineering conflicts and a more innovative framework to apply the ‘rocks, pebbles, and sand’ lesson. Lastly, McKinsey claims to have identified ‘four types of behavior that account for 89 percent of leadership effectiveness.’ This brings us to Deloitte Insights, exploring whether you can measure a ‘hidden—yet increasingly critical—key performance indicator:’ trust.

Food for Agile Thought #354: Agile Forecasting, Winning Product Strategies, Measuring Trust, What Product Market Fit Feels Like — Age-of-Product.com

No Sprint Goal, No Cohesion, No Collaboration — Making Your Scrum Work #26

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-08-01 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: No Sprint Goal

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. For example, what if there is no Sprint Goal — Sprint after Sprint? What if the Scrum team is always only working on a random assortment of work items that seem to be the most pressing at the moment of the Sprint Planning?

Join me and delve into the importance of the Sprint Goal for meaningful work as a Scrum team in less than two minutes.