News — Find all Issues of the Food for Agile Thought Newsletter

Food for Agile Thought #379: Patton’s Product Vision, Spotify Model Revisited, Design Thinking’s Failure, More Scrum Bashing

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-02-10 News

TL; DR: Patton’s Product Vision — Food for Agile Thought #379

Welcome to the 379th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,703 peers. This week, we follow Jeff Patton when he revisits his beliefs on the product vision. Also, Henrik Kniberg reflects on the ‘Spotify Model,’ if there is such a model, to begin with, how it started, what its principles are, and whether copying it is a good idea, and Reforge engages in more Scrum bashing with little knowledge of how Scrum works in practice when not run by dogmatic lunatics. Moreover, we sketch how to help your stakeholders build trust in your delivery capabilities and point to twelve success principles of employing a Definition of Done to ensure that.

Then, we learn why Rebecca Ackermann fears that, instead of democratizing access to design, Design Thinking accomplished the opposite, and we reject the idea that ‘90% of product managers are incompetent or lazy or quietly quitting’ because stakeholders consider them unresponsive to their product requests. Our weekly dose of AI is provided by Lenny Rachitsky and Marily Nika, who delve into the importance of artificial intelligence concerning the future of product management.

Finally, we enjoy Tanmay Vora’s illustration of ‘six components of creating a culture of change acceptance based,’ from ownership to relevance, and listen to Jocko Willink diving into decision-making and why people closest to problems need a voice in how to solve them. Lastly, Dan Shipper details how he used GPT-3 and the content from a newsletter archive to create a niche chatbot.

Food for Agile Thought #379: Patton’s Product Vision, Spotify Model Revisited, Design Thinking’s Failure, More Scrum Bashing — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #378: Top 1% Product Managers, Is Scrum Process-Heavy? 2023 State of PM, Could ChatGPT Do My Job?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-02-03 News

TL; DR: Top One Percent Product Managers — Food for Agile Thought #378

Welcome to the 378th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,661 peers. This week, we reflect on the (product management) industry’s obsession with the top one percent, given the ambiguity about what product managers do. Also, we analyze why Lean Startup is an excellent blueprint for Scrum teams seeking to extend their knowledge of the problem and solution space while breaking down Scrum into components and composite elements, asking: Is Scrum process-heavy? Moreover, we enjoy Jason Yip’s approach to becoming a leadership whisperer.

Then, ProductPlan released the latest edition of its ‘data-backed exploration of how product teams support the entire product lifecycle, from idea to launch and beyond,’ and we learn from a 17th-century naval disaster how not to pursue product design. Speaking of which: We are thirty years into ‘Agile,’ and Jeff Gothelf asks why so few companies incentivize learning and experimentation.

Finally, we list seven estimation anti-patterns, from pretending certainty to effort tampering to story point inflation, and reflect on the increasing popularity of tracking velocity across teams, according to data from the Annual State of Agile reports. Moreover, Sally Goble shares proven practices to get your codebase back into shape, and we advocate that forcing change is often fruitless; why not persuade them with science?

Food for Agile Thought #378: Top 1% Product Managers, Is Scrum Process-Heavy? 2023 State of PM, Could ChatGPT Do My Job? Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #377: Spotify Model Critique, Building Products With AI, Gemba Walk Guide, Product or Feature?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-27 News

TL; DR: Spotify Model Critique — Food for Agile Thought #377

Welcome to the 377th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,609 peers. This week, we start with a Spotify Model critique: Jason Yip dissected what many consider an agile framework from an insider’s perspective. Also, we point to issues contributing to management’s failure to keep pace with innovation, from branded management practices vying for attention to business school complicity to confusing management with exact science, and we appreciate John Cutler’s sketch of a simple framework to become a better leader.

Then, we apply the 5C model to ‘bring some structure and product thinking to AI solutions.’ Additionally, we share practical advice on a common product management challenge: feature or product? Also, we listen to Jason Knight and Jeff Gothelf philosophizing about the necessary shift from output to outcome orientation and why organizations still struggle to do so, and we explain Spotify’s approach to validation employing the broader DIBB framework: Data, Insight, Belief, and Bet.

Finally, John Shook shares his guidelines for Gemba walks as an outside advisor, from asking why to showing respect. Moreover, RebootHQ released a bundle of free self-guided courses, and Puppet made the 10th edition of the State of DevOps Report available. Lastly, we shed light on quality metrics, defining different ones for different stakeholder groups while warning of the risks of gaming them.

Food for Agile Thought #377: Spotify Model Critique, Building Products With AI, Gemba Walk Guide, Product or Feature? Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #376: Product Team Performance, Injustice at Work, How to Lead Complexity, ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-20 News

TL; DR: Product Team Performance — Food for Agile Thought #376

Welcome to the 376th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,564 peers. This week, we listen to our two product heavyweights, Lenny Rachitsky and John Cutler, delving into the performance of product teams. We continue with suggesting abandoning the popular framing that Waterfall is the opposite of Agile and that moving from one to the other requires a transformation, and identify four roles, at least one which you will play in a moment of injustice: person harmed, upstander, the person who caused harm, or leader. Moreover, we learn how a major Toyota program was saved by descaling and applying Scrum.

Then, we enjoy Marty Cagan sharing his approach to how teams and companies “can best deal with the challenges of complexity.” Also, we explore “three popular models for product teams,” and point to stakeholder alignment factors, from not trapping yourself to not confusing roadmaps with release plans to treating stakeholders as customers. Moreover, the ProdPad folks compiled a comprehensive list of questions your team may engage in identifying what is worth building.

Finally, Petra Wille shares the first findings from her 2022 survey into what drives thriving communities of practices for product people. Next, JTBD Toolkit released the JTBD Canvas 2.0, and there are new ChatGPT prompts for Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Developers. Lastly, Tami Reiss has a candid conversation with Rich Mironov on product ethics and the corresponding responsibilities of product managers and leaders.

Food for Agile Thought #376: Product Team Performance, Injustice at Work, How to Lead Complexity, ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #375: Acceleration Beats Velocity, Jazz Lessons for Product, 3 Forms of Debt, Becoming a Product Coach

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-13 News

TL; DR: Acceleration Beats Velocity — Food for Agile Thought #375

Welcome to the 375th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,502 peers. This week, we add new layers to the old ‘is velocity a useful metric’ discussion, pointing at physics, acceleration, and its multi-dimensionality. While at it, we also analyze the delicate tension between leadership and stakeholders, product management, and engineering, and learn how to make ‘effective decisions and [reduce] human misjudgment.’ As an experiment, we put OpenAI’s latest generative AI to the test: Would ChatGPT pass a screening interview for a fictitious Scrum Master position?

Then, we learn lessons from Frank Barrett’s book ‘Yes To The Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz,’ and we go back in history to shed more light on a divisive term — the ‘feature factory.’ Additionally, Marty Cagan shares his take on how to progress as a product manager in the field of product coaching, explaining prerequisites, the different coaching fields, and customer types.

Finally, we dissect the original idea of “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure” to explore Amazon’s approach, especially working backward. Moreover, we appreciate Will Larson’s deep dive into the details of assessing an engineering organization for various interested parties and Jason Yip’s measures to improve flow, from changing measuring delivery to per-process-step WIP limits. And if you are looking to spice up your Retrospectives, we have you covered with a set of retrospective games, from photo finish to Retrospective bingo to agile Battleship.

Food for Agile Thought #375: Acceleration Beats Velocity, Jazz Lessons for Product Management, 3 Exhausting Forms of Debt, Becoming a Product Coach — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #374: The Hidden Micromanager, Defining Product Outcomes, Building a Learning Culture, Product-Market Fit Engineering

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-06 News

TL; DR: The Hidden Micromanager, Defining Product Outcomes — Food for Agile Thought #374

Happy 2023 and welcome to the 374th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,453 peers. This week, we share a short assessment of whether you fall into the category of the “hidden micromanager.” Speaking of which, we delve into nurturing a blame-free learning organization, from accepting the inevitability of failure, embracing the resulting learning opportunity, reflecting, and moving on. Moreover, we listen to Jason Knight and Douglas Squirrel diving deep into how tech teams can get closer to the business side, improve decision processes, and have effective conversations across the whole organization whiling pointing to five habits of high-performing teams, from using pre-mortems to a disagree-but-commit attitude to making learning a priority.

Then, we follow Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion, delving into the intricate details of getting outcomes right, from avoiding masquerading outputs as outcomes to not choosing outcomes outside your team’s control to not measuring action instead of value, and we reflect on the inherent risks of continuing to work with your prototypes beyond product-market fit, which is all too common. Additionally, we point out that failures are inevitable, and product managers learn in public. Consequently, it would help if you improved dealing with failure in public, too.

Finally, we provide a comprehensive guide on the OKR framework and its application to product management. Moreover, we reframe the investigative and often intrusive ‘why’ question so you “indirectly but effectively get the answers you need.” Amazingly, John Cutler created a live diagram of his modeling process. As an example, he aims to identify the drivers of a healthy community. Lastly, Jason Yip advocates using Blink Estimation, User Story Mapping, and swimlane sizing to improve project-level forecasting.