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Food for Agile Thought #461: Bringing Problems to Leaders, Backlash for Product Managers, Dangerous Founder Mode, Fueling Product Discovery

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-09-20 News

TL; DR: Bringing Problems to Leaders — Food for Agile Thought #461

Welcome to the 461st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,821 peers. This week, Ant Murphy advocates for bringing problems to leaders to foster collaboration and empathy over the ‘don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions’ mindset, while Melissa Perri critiques Paul Graham’s ‘Founder Mode,’ urging founder CEOs to balance vision with scalable strategies. Murray Robinson, Shane Gibson, and William Malek explore Haier’s decentralized operating model, and Shane Hastie and Declan Whelan emphasize the importance of technical health and Agile practices. Chris Matts critiques escalations, highlighting their role in reinforcing dysfunctional leadership, and a deep dive explores the perils of Founder Mode’s micromanagement and lack of transparency.

Next, Peter Yang addresses the growing negativity towards product managers, offering ten actionable insights to regain respect. Also, in conversation with Lenny Rachitsky, Camille Fournier discusses platform engineering frustrations and tips for new managers. Rohan Dehal explores how business models shape product strategy, focusing on aligning user needs with business goals, and Andrew Chen critiques common startup pivots, urging founders to prioritize refining their core product and targeting top users for success.

Lastly, John Cutler highlights three models—capability trees, customer journeys, and growth loops—that prevent siloed thinking in product development. At the same time, Maarten Dalmijn urges teams to prioritize value over timelines, Bandan Jot Singh critiques NPS, advocating for real-time sentiment analysis in D2C companies, and Paweł Huryn shares 12 key sources for product discovery. Finally, Jason Cohen explores the accuracy of crowd wisdom in objective scenarios but warns against its stifling effect on innovation in creative work.

Food for Agile Thought #461: Bringing Problems, Backlash for Product Managers, Dangerous Founder Mode, Fueling Product Discovery - Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #460: Copy-Paste Agile, How to Improve Retention, Psychological Safety Myth, Your Guide to the Kano Model

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-09-13 News

TL; DR: Copy-Paste Agile — Food for Agile Thought #460

Welcome to the 460th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,798 peers. This week, Maarten Dalmijn argues that the era of one-size-fits-all Agile is over, advocating for agnostic approaches tailored to organizational contexts over mere Copy-Paste Agile, and Gustavo Razzetti challenges rigid psychological safety truisms, urging leaders to promote ownership and courage instead. Willem-Jan Ageling highlights common Scrum practices that frustrate developers, while Joost Minnaar shares insights from over 50 self-managing organizations exemplifying the RenDanHeYi model. Also, Pierre Pureur and Kurt Bittner discuss how embracing technical debt through Minimum Viable Architecture can accelerate learning.

Next, James Gunaca explores the evolving product management job market, emphasizing competition and shifting hiring practices. Aakash Gupta shares retention strategies from his 15-year experience in product, while Stephen Shapiro offers unconventional innovation prompts that foster long-term value and differentiation. Moreover, David Pereira outlines five tactics for B2B product managers to avoid the “feature factory” trap, focusing on balancing customer wants with user needs, iterating quickly, and leveraging qualitative data.

Lastly, Mark Somerfield critiques The Lean Startup, emphasizing the importance of strong relationships over data-driven processes. Johanna Rothman advocates for using Cost of Delay (CoD) to align teams with business goals, while Bandan Jot Singh offers a practical guide to prioritizing features using the Kano model. Productside provides a comprehensive overview of U.S. Product Management salaries in 2024, and David Pinsof presents 30 concepts exploring manipulation, self-deception, and the role of status in human behavior.

Food for Agile Thought #460: Copy-Paste Agile, How to Improve Retention, Psychological Safety Myth, Your Guide to the Kano Model — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #459: Challenging Assumptions, High-Performing Product Teams, Product Strategy Discovery, The Reason for Agile’s Decline

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-09-06 News

TL; DR: Challenging Assumptions — Food for Agile Thought #459

Welcome to the 459th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,779 peers. This week, John Cutler suggests structuring organizations to become comfortable with challenging assumptions and thrive amid changing conditions, while Simon Powers examines culture’s impact on individuals and Agile’s decline. Bob Galen emphasizes the shift from rigid frameworks to flexible, context-driven agile patterns, Ted Neward highlights common ‘manager antipatterns’ in leadership, and Gustavo Razzetti stresses intellectual humility to prevent doubling down on poor decisions.

Next, Melissa Suzuno highlights how Botify’s transition to product-trio-supported enhanced collaboration and decision-making, while Todd Lankford offers a 5-step guide for teams to prioritize user needs over excessive planning. Stephanie Leue shares her approach to building high-performing teams, and Vlad Loktev, interviewed by Lenny Rachitski, discusses leadership insights from his decade at Airbnb, emphasizing chaos, impact, and balance in product development.

Lastly, Jacob Bennett shares his structured approach to work estimation for better outcomes, and Roman Pichler introduces product strategy discovery to minimize failure risk. Also, Pim de Morree critiques hierarchical team structures, advocating for more collaborative models, and Chris Stone presents the ‘Days Since Last’ metric for driving team accountability. Finally, Paul Graham reflects on the importance of a ‘founder mode’ approach to scaling companies, challenging conventional management wisdom.

Food for Agile Thought #459: Challenging Assumptions, High-Performing Product Teams, Product Strategy Discovery, The Reason for Agile’s Decline — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #458: Engineers in Customer Support, Product & Tech Debt, Product Launch Mistakes, Cynics Rarely Succeed

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-08-30 News

TL; DR: Engineers in Customer Support — Food for Agile Thought #458

Welcome to the 458th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,762 peers. This week, Ian Vanagas advocates involving engineers in customer support to boost product quality through faster feedback and ownership. Maarten Dalmijn identifies six common pitfalls in using spikes in Agile, and Jamil Zaki warns that workplace cynicism diminishes success, while Joost Minnaar attributes Enterprise’s success to decentralization and a customer-centric approach. Lastly, Andy Cleff emphasizes the importance of leadership virtues—courage, resilience, alliances, gratitude, and vulnerability—in driving continuous improvement and change.

Next, Gregor Ojstersek and Robert Ta provide engineers with strategies to convince Product Managers to prioritize technical debt by aligning it with business goals. Aakash Gupta and Jason Knight shed light on the complexities of B2B product management, stressing the need for PMs to balance revenue-driven features and broader strategic influence, and Aatir Abdul Rauf identifies 15 crucial mistakes to avoid during product launches. Moreover, Yuri Berchenko offers guidance on optimizing subscription product pricing through regular adjustments and customer segmentation.

Lastly, Domenic Edwards presents a detailed list of essential Product Manager tasks, adaptable to any organization’s needs. Dirk Lässig offers strategies for managing “evil dependencies” in software development, focusing on minimization, mitigation, and coordination, and Gustavo Razzetti explains how teams can rapidly build trust by fostering transparency and clarity. Also, Mario Caropreso stresses the need to balance operational excellence with project delivery. Finally, Michael H. Goitein advocates shifting from a “waiter” mindset to a “doctor” approach in product development, emphasizing user-focused continuous discovery.

Food for Agile Thought #458: Engineers in Customer Support, Product & Tech Debt, Product Launch Mistakes, Cynics Rarely Succeed - Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #457: Blaming Agile for Lacking Innovation, Structuring Product Organizations, Cost of Delay, Unhealthy Team Tension

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-08-23 News

TL; DR: Blaming Agile — Food for Agile Thought #457

Welcome to the 457th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,744 peers. This week, Rupert Goodwins critiques Moxie Marlinspike’s view of blaming Agile, emphasizing innovation’s evolution and the need for fresh thinking, while Jim Highsmith urges a shift from productivity metrics to value creation. Dave Rooney highlights simple defect management, using an analog tool, and Jeff Gothelf advocates for trust-based leadership. Following up, Ant Murphy stresses the importance of healthy team tension and collaboration over fear for creativity and the effectiveness of teams.

Next, John Cutler and Leah Tharin emphasize the need for a well-defined operating model in product organizations, focusing on team structure and accountability during growth. David Pereira stresses aligning strategy, discovery, and delivery for value creation in product management, and Melissa Suzuno highlights Ramsey Solutions’ engineer rotation in product trios for balanced skill development. Also, Richard Mironov explains how a company’s price point shapes its organizational behavior, especially in B2C versus B2B environments.

Lastly, Johanna Rothman discusses using the Cost of Delay to prioritize work, emphasizing determining if the work is still valuable first. Chris Stone introduces the Lean Experiment Canvas, a tool for teams to design and test hypotheses in Retrospectives. Then, Jenny Wanger provides a checklist for influencing product managers, focusing on understanding their challenges and simplifying changes, and Rolf Mistelbacher highlights how generative AI helps creators rapidly prototype by bridging skill gaps. Finally, Shane Gibson, Murray Robinson, and Gene Kim discuss the importance of organizational wiring, including leadership and communication, in fostering high-performing DevOps and agile teams.

Food for Agile Thought #457: Blaming Agile for Lacking Innovation, Structuring Product Organizations, Cost of Delay, Unhealthy Team Tension — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #456: Strategy Creation, Product Model & Outsourcing, Agile Transformation Pitfalls, Derisking Daily Work

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-08-16 News

TL; DR: Strategy Creation — Food for Agile Thought #456

Welcome to the 456th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,728 peers. This week, Rob Lambert offers a detailed guide to effective strategy creation, while Reddit user henbitcookies1 questions the value of Scrum, seeking ways to reduce its burdens. Willem-Jan Ageling identifies common pitfalls in Agile transformations, and Tobias Berggren Jensen and Elisabeth Naima Mikkelsen explore the challenges of radically decentralized self-managing organizations. Also, Todd Lankford advocates for abandoning upfront commitments in favor of continuous learning to achieve better product development outcomes.

Next, Marty Cagan and Josh Kerievsky discuss how outsourcing agencies can adopt the product model to enhance collaboration and client outcomes. Richard Mironov argues for retiring the term “prioritization” in favor of more precise communication between stakeholders and product teams. Additionally, UserPilot outlines strategies for identifying and solving customer problems, emphasizing continuous research and effective onboarding, and Roman Pichler explores the benefits and challenges of involving stakeholders in product teams, stressing strategic involvement and the role of coaching in improving collaboration and decision-making.

Lastly, on the personal side, Wes Kao shares strategies to mitigate risks at work by asking critical questions and preempting issues, and Lenny Rachitsky offers ten time management techniques to enhance productivity and reduce stress. Paweł Huryn introduces the Assumption Prioritization Canvas, refining traditional methods for prioritizing assumptions in Continuous Product Discovery, while Martijn Oost critiques the “Team Topologies” framework, advocating for context-specific strategies rooted in foundational principles like Conway’s Law. Finally, Gustavo Razzetti emphasizes the power of team culture over company culture, highlighting its role in driving change and fostering collaboration.