Stefan Wolpers

Food for Agile Thought #353: Sales vs. Product, Minimum Viable Transformation, User Story Mapping Guide, Pivot or Persevere?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-07-29 News

TL; DR: Sales vs. Product, Minimum Viable Transformation — Food for Agile Thought #353

Welcome to the 353rd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,651 peers. This week, we delve into Sales vs. Product, analyzing their conflicting worldviews. Additionally, we learn about the pre-requisites of cultural change, for example, ensuring that at least a quarter of your community supports the endeavor. Also, we detail why long-term software development plans do not work and critique an acclaimed book on DevOps, metrics, and effectiveness in software development.

Then, we reflect on Lean Startup’s “pivot or persevere” decision: scale, kill, pivot, or persevere, and we show practical ways to reduce our product’s risk of failure, from testing assumptions to data-informed decision-making. Moreover, we share eleven lessons on enabling product management with distributed teams, from the need to write more to embrace tools beyond Zoom and Google Docs.

Finally, we enjoy Avion’s bookmark-worthy guide on user story mapping and detail how product analytics can reduce churn if you learn to identify customers that share ‘specific characteristics and usage patterns.’ Lastly, Russ Roberts interviews the economist — and former chief economist of Uber and Lyft — John List on what determines scalability and ‘good ideas.’

Food for Agile Thought #353: Sales vs. Product, Minimum Viable Transformation, User Story Mapping Guide, Pivot or Persevere? Age-of-Product.com

Unengaged Stakeholders at the Sprint Review — Making Your Scrum Work #25

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-07-25 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Unengaged Stakeholders

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 your Scrum team repeatedly faces unengaged stakeholders at the Sprint Review? How can the Scrum team stay on track in accomplishing the Product Goal when a vital feedback loop is missing?

Join me and delve into how to support your stakeholders in living up to their part of the collaboration with the Scrum team in less than two minutes.

Unengaged Stakeholder at the Sprint Review — Making Your Scrum Work 25 — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #352: Team Topologies, CEOs and Product Leaders, Why Strategies Change, Leadership Essentials

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-07-22 News

TL; DR: Team Topologies, CEOs and Product Leaders — Food for Agile Thought #352

Welcome to the 352nd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,602 peers. This week, we revisit Team Topologies, Conway’s Law, and how you might influence an organization’s structure as a lone product manager. We also explore the essence of behavioral change and apply lessons from Tim Hartford’s Cautionary Tale “The South Pole Race: David and Goliath on Ice” to your failed agile transformation. Moreover, we try to understand what ‘dream teams’ or ‘tiger teams’ supposedly are.

Then, we delve into the delicate relationship between the CEO and the product leader of an organization, stressing the importance of building candor, trust, and communicating well. Also, we listen to Casey Winters sharing career advice for aspiring product managers, from communicating upward to de-risking meetings. Finally, John Cutler continues his quest to understand product strategy; this time is all about why it changes, from recency bias to sporadic research.

Finally, we follow Jake Burghardt delving into the usefulness of research repositories as internal learning tools, including practical suggestions on how to employ them, and we enjoy a new game to ‘illustrate essential aspects for collaboration and workflow improvements.’ Lastly, HBR points to a critical element of why ‘organizational transformations are prone to failure.’

Food for Agile Thought #352: Team Topologies, CEOs and Product Leaders, Why Strategies Change, Leadership Essentials—Age-of-Product.com

Stakeholder Trust

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-07-18 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Stakeholder Trust

Trust is the beginning of everything. I am hesitant to recycle an old slogan of a banking institute. However, in the context of becoming a learning organization and embracing business agility, it condenses the main challenge perfectly: How shall we convince the incumbents with vested interests in the status quo to give the new way of working the benefit of the doubt? Join me and delve into how distrust manifests and what we can do to earn stakeholder trust.

Stakeholder Trust — Scrum Master Survival Guide — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #351: Agile and Deadlines, Why We (Often) Lack Strategy, Making Room for Discovery, Switching to Shape Up

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-07-15 News

TL; DR: Agile and Deadlines, Lack of Strategy — Food for Agile Thought #351

Welcome to the 351st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,559 peers. This week, we delve into Agile and deadlines, debunking the myth of many managers that being agile only works in environments without them. Moreover, James Shore and Aino Vonge Corry dissect a core event to help teams reflect and improve. Also, we learn how Safesite went from two-week sprints to an approach that helped them understand ‘our customers better and [validate] what should be built next.’

Then, we reflect on disincentives to thinking strategically, starting with system design, and we describe Paypal’s innovation system that involves a ‘blockchain-based token system that lets employees place wagers on ideas.’ Also, we list suggestions to free yourself from administrative tasks for the benefit of figuring out what is worth building.

Finally, we analyze why most managers are good at managing but lack a critical skill of the 21st century, and we define lean metrics based on insights from the leading organization in everything ‘Lean’—Toyota. Lastly, we delve into the lessons learned from mastering mobbing together in a live stream.

Food for Agile Thought #351: Agile and Deadlines, Why We (Often) Lack Strategy, Transitioning to Shape Up, More Time for Product Discovery — Age-of-Product.com

Prisoners of Retrospectives — Making Your Scrum Work #24

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-07-10 Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Prisoners of Retrospectives

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. What if, for example, not all of your Scrum team’s members feel enthusiastic about the Sprint Retrospective, the critical event when the Scrum team inspects itself? How can you help them become dedicated supporters instead? Join me and delve into how to avoid teammates feeling like prisoners of Retrospectives in less than two minutes.