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Food for Agile Thought #466: Product Discovery Guide, Competitive Research Guide, Agile Fatigue, Fuzzy Product Strategy

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-10-25 News

TL; DR: Product Discovery Guide — Food for Agile Thought #466

Welcome to the 466th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,928 peers. This week’s issue features Afonso Franco in a masterclass with Teresa Torres and Petra Wille, sharing a great product discovery guide, while James Morgan dissects Agile’s limitations, promoting critical thinking over rigidity. John Cutler and Tom Kerwin satirically tackle extreme leadership in “Ultra Founder Mode,” and Lisa Gill highlights self-managing teams’ struggles with autonomy. Also, Wes Kao delves into understanding bureaucrats’ mindsets to foster better collaboration.

Next, David Pereira advocates using AI as a co-pilot to elevate PM effectiveness, while Aatir Abdul Rauf offers a detailed guide to competitive research for B2B SaaS. In an interview with Aakash Gupta, George Harter shares his approach to understanding users, and Melissa Perri provides strategies for achieving clarity amid ambiguous company visions.

Lastly, Itamar Gilad shares practical techniques for fostering a strong decision-making culture using clear roles and evidence-based approaches. Moreover, Ant Murphy shares his observations about John Cutler’s prioritization course, which is focused on urgency. Gregor Ojstersek discusses the importance of metrics like DORA and SPACE, and Evan Armstrong emphasizes storytelling and psychology in influencing leadership. Finally, Cedric Chin explores how business frameworks intersect with human nature through lessons from Sam Zemurray’s banana trade success.

Food for Agile Thought #466: Product Discovery Guide, Competitive Research Guide, Agile Fatigue, Fuzzy Product Strategy - Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #465: Reverse Product Roadmap, Productwashing, Bossless Organizations, Framework Fever

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-10-18 News

TL; DR: Reverse Product Roadmap — Food for Agile Thought #465

Welcome to the 465th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,913 peers. This week, John Utz promotes a “reverse product roadmap” approach, focusing on feature elimination to simplify products. Mark Graban critiques command-and-control leadership for sabotaging Lean transformations by prioritizing cost-cutting, while Maarten Dalmijn warns against blindly adopting frameworks like SAFe without context. Also, Pim de Morree shares lessons from transforming Indaero into a bossless organization, and Ula Ojiaku highlights the dangers of “framework fever,” advocating for tailored, context-aware methodologies to prevent costly misalignments.

Next, Paolo Lacche introduces “product washing,” where companies falsely claim to implement product management, reducing PMs to powerless roles. Todd Lankford emphasizes delivering value over managing backlogs, offering actionable tips for Product Owners, and Warren Schirtzinger demystifies the misunderstood “crossing the chasm” concept, highlighting critical misapplications. Moreover, Aakash Gupta and Gagan Biyani delve into Maven’s cohort-based learning model, its scalability, the value of Product Management in startups, and long-term career strategies for job seekers.

Lastly, Viktor Cessan outlines how Viafree leveraged a remote Self-Selection process to transition disbanded teams, ensuring smooth integration and maintaining motivation, and Jock Busuttil addresses the backlash against the Spotify Model, emphasizing its evolution and enduring lessons. Eric Brechner shares strategies to avoid knowledge loss when key employees leave, while Soren Kaplan offers actionable steps to manage team conflict. Finally, Jerry Neumann challenges the belief in accelerating technology adoption, exploring the factors that truly influence adoption speed and societal impact.

Food for Agile Thought #465: Reverse Product Roadmap, Productwashing, Bossless Organizations, Framework Fever — Age-of-Product.com

Join the Scrum Master Salary Report 2025 — Let Us Create Transparency

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-10-13 Featured Agile and ScrumNews

TL;DR: Scrum Master Salary Report 2025 — An Anonymous Poll by the Community for the Community

The purpose of this anonymous Scrum Master salary report is to create a clear, data-backed benchmark that allows everyone in the Agile community to understand whether their compensation is adequate. The report will cover Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, both employed and freelancing.

The goal is to have at least 1,000 replies by the end of December 2024 to create the report in time for February 2025. The report will be available for free.

Join the Scrum Master Salary Report 2025 — Let Us Create Transparency — Age-of-Product.com

📈 Join the Anonymous Poll for the Upcoming Free Scrum Master Salary Report 2025.

Food for Agile Thought #464: Rapid Prototyping with Claude, Ignoring Feature Requests, Sabotating Innovation, Bayer’s Radical Transformation

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-10-11 News

TL; DR: Rapid Prototyping with Claude — Food for Agile Thought #464

Welcome to the 464th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,881 peers. This week, Henrik Kniberg showcases rapid prototyping with Claude, transforming sketches into fully functional apps in minutes, while Steve Blank outlines how innovators can defend against incumbent sabotage. John Cutler discusses using enabling constraints to manage rapid growth, and Adam Ard critiques the overuse of ‘Agile,’ advocating core practices to enhance agility. Also, Bob Galen addresses Agile coach burnout, emphasizing resilience and proactive leadership.

Next, Avi Siegel advises product managers to ignore most feature requests to prevent feature bloat and maintain focus on long-term value. Maarten Dalmijn critiques the unnecessary complexity that can arise with both Product Owners and Product Managers, urging a more streamlined approach, and Martin Eriksson explains why many company visions fail, offering tips to craft a vision that motivates teams and drives results. Moreover, Melissa Suzuno identifies 12 common challenges product trios face, providing solutions to improve collaboration and decision-making.

Lastly, Charles Lambdin delves into estimating the cost of delay, focusing on confidence intervals and structured conversations to prioritize work. Linus Dahlander and Francis de Véricourt explore how Lean Startup methods can be adapted for deep-tech ventures to mitigate technological uncertainty. Then, Gustavo Razzetti advocates for expanding your circle of influence by focusing on what you can control, and Diana Stepner encourages product leaders to adopt a “learn-it-all” mindset, using smart questioning to drive innovation. Finally, Corporate Rebels will feature Bayer’s transformation to self-management and Dynamic Shared Ownership (DSO).

Food for Agile Thought #464: Rapid Prototyping with Claude, Ignoring Feature Requests, Sabotating Innovation, Bayer’s Radical Transformation – Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #463: Product Transformation, The Aha! Framework, PMs & Technical Expertise, Are Scrum Masters Overhead?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-10-04 News

TL; DR: Product Transformation — Food for Agile Thought #463

Welcome to the 463rd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,865 peers. This week, Christian Idiodi shares product transformation tactics to empower product managers in a podcast with Aakash Gupta, while Maarten Dalmijn questions the necessity of Scrum Masters in startups. We revisit Agile’s core principles, with John Cutler emphasizing leadership trust and collaboration, Johanna Rothman advocating for autonomy through less micromanagement and Aha! presenting its flexible framework contrasting Scrum, SAFe®, and Kanban’s complexities.

Next, Gojko Adzic highlights how bugs and feature requests reveal product opportunities, while Chris Butler, in conversation with Jason Knight, argues that product managers don’t need technical expertise for effective collaboration. Mike Goitein stresses continuous discovery and empowerment over command-driven management, and Louron Pratt calls for product managers to focus on tracking feature adoption to optimize value.

Lastly, Fred Hebert warns against using incentives in complex situations, urging for systemic understanding over organizational pressure. Mike Cohn discusses the dangers of perfect estimates, offering practical ways to improve accuracy. Andy Sparks emphasizes the benefits of time audits for leaders, while Tanmay Vora highlights how mindful language fosters psychological safety, referencing Tom Geraghty’s “Seven Deadly Sins of Psychological Safety.”

Food for Agile Thought #463: Product Transformation, The Aha! Framework, PMs & Technical Expertise, Are Scrum Masters Overhead? Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #462: Enabling Agility in Large Organizations, Product Team Topologies, Feature Parity, Anatomy of Self-Management

by Stefan Wolpers | 2024-09-27 News

TL; DR: Enabling Agility — Food for Agile Thought #462

Welcome to the 462nd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 42,839 peers. This week, Nick van der Meulen explores how enabling agility in large organizations works by empowering teams through four decision rights guardrails. Itamar Gilad examines decision-making challenges, advocating for decentralization and context-sharing, while Petra Wille and Elias Lieberich offer strategies for optimizing team topologies to enhance flow and productivity. Also, Willem-Jan Ageling highlights how organizational culture often undermines the autonomy promised by Agile principles, and Pim de Morree discusses how self-managing organizations, functioning as dynamic networks, drive innovation and adaptability.

Next, Marcus Castenfors warns against giving too much autonomy too soon during product transformations, highlighting the need for clear leadership and team competence. Maarten Dalmijn challenges the traditional view of requirements, emphasizing the need to anchor them in actual needs, and Saeed Khan advises against chasing feature parity with competitors, advocating instead for market-driven, value-differentiated product strategies. Moreover, Afonso Franco calls for viewing cross-functional teams as a unified discipline, focusing on collective jobs-to-be-done to enhance collaboration and reduce siloed thinking.

Lastly, Doc Norton shares his take on Opportunity Solution Trees, emphasizing collaborative problem-solving and iterative experimentation for achieving outcomes. Wes Kao offers practical advice on delivering bad news effectively, focusing on clarity, avoiding blame, and maintaining agency. Additionally, Melissa Perri explores the role of Product Ops, addressing key pillars, scaling, and the skills essential for a CPO, and Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify, shares insights on his journey from coder to tech leader, discussing cultural contrasts, coding, and retail’s future with VR and AI. Finally, IDEO highlights the potential of integrating AI with Design Thinking to enhance creativity and user-centric innovation.