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Food for Agile Thought #341: Adopting Agility, Failure to Scale Ideas, Measuring Success, ‘Great’ Product Manager

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-05-06 News

TL; DR: Adopting Agility, Failure to Scale Ideas — Food for Agile Thought #341

Welcome to the 341st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,206 peers. This week, we learn about adopting agility with a research initiative of Thinkers 50 and Capgemini Invent, and we delve into the difficulties of answering a typical question: ‘What are the pros and cons of Agile?’ Moreover, we analyze the challenges of collaboration after switching to product-based funding, pointing at Conway and Brooks, and end with observations on how the subtleties of an organization influence the effectiveness of internal and external agile coaches, respectively.

We then identify five causes why some products peter out when they grow, from false positives to biased representation to cost traps, and outline three tactics for stakeholder collaboration and inclusion. Additionally, we share Jason Cohen’s framework for Product Management that defines what ‘great’ concerning product managers means in practical terms. We also shed light on the nature of the Scrum team regarding its product capabilities, namely its lack of stakeholder inclusion.

Then, we listen to Jeff Gothelf regarding his advice on adopting the goal-setting OKR framework to measure success, and we learn how Pendo practices continuous discovery, from recruiting interviewees to designing and running experiments. Finally, we are closing this edition with Tim Ferriss interviewing Tony Fadell, covering “Steve Jobs on ‘Vacation,’ Product Design and Team Building, Good Assholes vs. Bad Assholes, Investing in Trends Before They Become Trends, The Hydrogen Economy, [and] The Future of Batteries.”

Food for Agile Thought #341: 📖 Adopting Agility, Failure to Scale Ideas, Measuring Success, ‘Great’ Product Manager — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #340: Roadmaps: Portfolios of Bets, Progressive Organizations, From PM to CEO, Potential of Diversity

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-04-29 News

TL; DR: Portfolios of Bets, Progressive Organizations — Food for Agile Thought #340

Welcome to the 340th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,173 peers. This week, we list ten progressive organizations with structures rooted in practice, from Kyocera to VISA to Haier. Also, we present research results that unlocking the benefits of diversity requires that team members can ‘express their ideas, questions or concerns and not be embarrassed or ostracised.’ Moreover, we believe that Taylorism is a continuation of the Newtonian Mindset of linear causalities—with serious consequences for the way we work.

We then take a different view on product roadmaps as portfolios of bets and visualize the differences between an earlier-stage VC-backed startup and a later-stage company. Additionally, we discover ways to tame complexity in product development, dissect the abrupt demise of CNN+ and its lessons for pursuing product discovery and explore 20 typically Sprint Planning anti-patterns. Also, there is some career advice: Kristina Walcker-Mayer believes that product management is an excellent apprenticeship to becoming a CEO.

Lastly, we suggest playing a game to reduce your potential risk and avoid falling victim to the planning fallacy, and we appreciate a guide to help you set and achieve your goals based on Stoicism’s first principles of self-discipline, self-control, and endurance.

Food for Agile Thought #340: Roadmaps: Portfolios of Bets, Progressive Organizations, From PM to CEO, Potential of Diversity — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #339: Product Management Anti-Patterns, Scrum-like Kanban, Fixing Your Product Roadmap, 300+ Agile and Scrum Statistics

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-04-22 News

TL; DR: Product Management Anti-Patterns, Scrum-like Kanban — Food for Agile Thought #339

Welcome to the 339th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,114 peers. This week, we explore product management anti-patterns, from the hamster wheel to the ivory tower to the throne room, and we ask ourselves: What is a high-performing agile team? Also, we detail how to incorporate tactics and practices from Scrum into a Kanban system and suggest a massive list of statistics on ‘Agile’ and Scrum to support your initiatives with data.

We then point to two different processes that comprise product management: a) core product work, creating objective value, and b) growth work, optimizing how a product delivers value to customers. Moreover, we explain how startups may benefit from continuous discovery work, although most start with an idea, not a customer segment and a value proposition, and we describe a system of connecting strategy with operational doing, dubbed the ‘roadmap pipeline.’

Lastly, we show how value stream optimization helps to improve throughput and quality in the development process. We also point to Ray Dalio’s book ‘Principles,’ where Dalio communicates his idea of how to share your disagreement in a considerate and constructive manner. Finally, Eric Migicovsky published a post-mortem from 2017 on lessons learned from the demise of Pebble.

Food for Agile Thought #339: Product Management Anti-Patterns, Scrum-like Kanban, Fixing Your Product Roadmap, 300+ Agile and Scrum Statistics — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #338: The Taste of Salt & Agile Coaching, Visual Planning w/ Jeff & Gojko, Dunbar’s Number, Escaping the Planning Illusion

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-04-15 News

TL; DR: The Taste of Salt & Agile Coaching, Visual Planning w/ Jeff & Gojko — Food for Agile Thought #338

Welcome to the 338th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,072 peers. This week, we listen to Jeff Patton, Gojko Adzic, and James Shore delving into the benefits of visual planning. We also reflect on an often referred-to but rarely understood critical concept required to solve complex adaptive problems. Speaking of teamwork, we dive into the importance of group sizes in creating social cohesion and collaboration, referring to the ‘Dunbar number’—often used, simplified, and rarely understood as a concept. Moreover, Shai Yallin describes a process often causing technical debt and how to create systems to prevent this from happening.

We then analyze three significant problems with long-term planning, from premature decision making to the inevitable time consumption to promoting rigidity. Also, we criticize distinguishing between problem-solving and problem definition; this is probably less helpful than you think. Moreover, we suggest a simple approach to getting started with a critical element of product analytics and product-led growth to prevent you from slipping into feature factory mode.

Lastly, we follow Yves Hanoulle and Jason Yip using a compelling metaphor to explore the idea of ‘agile coaching.’ Then, borrowing from the human-centered systems thinking school, Deirdre Cerminaro suggests a visualization technique to help you ‘spot opportunities for growth and change.’ And we ask: How does Le Corbusier’s ‘Cité Frugès de Pessac’ masterpiece relate to going back to the office? Or shall we rather say: being forced back into the office?

Food for Agile Thought #338: The Taste of Salt & Agile Coaching, Visual Planning w/ Jeff & Gojko, Dunbar’s Number, Escaping the Planning Illusion — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #337: Story Points Made Simple, The Art Part of Product Management, Agility Patterns, Useful Team Metrics

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-04-08 News

TL; DR: Story Points Made Simple, The Art Part of Product Management — Food for Agile Thought #337

Welcome to the 337th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,011 peers. This week, we join Tim Ottinger, exploring the truth about story points and inviting the rest of the community to join. We also delve into patterns of agile transformations, from psychological safety to the “illusion of control,” and we cover engineering team success tactics from making all work visible to WiP limits to utilizing velocity right.

We then share an engaging canvas on the opportunities and realities of picking work by product teams. Moreover, we explore the criticality of human skills for product management—the Six Cs from communication to consciousness, while pointing out that successful products are typically not the work of a single genius with a magic touch but teamwork. Also, Roman Pichler delved into your questions on the role of the Product Owner, ranging from product manager vs. Product Owner vs. business analyst to the right size of a Product Backlog to linking product vision to Product Goal and Sprint Goal.

Then, based on Annie Duke’s work from “Thinking in Bets,” First Round Capital provides a guide on helpful mental models to support decision-making in teams and organizations, not just startups. On top of that, Lean Agile Intelligence aggregated a valuable list of resources on beneficial team metrics. Finally, we listen to Hà Phan, who advocates that “machine learning (ML) can be a key tool to gain the most effective data about your users.”

Food for Agile Thought #337: Story Points Made Simple, The Art Part of Product Management, Agility Patterns, Useful Team Metrics — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #336: Prioritization Politics, Experiments w/ POPCORN, Frederick Winslow Taylor, ProductOps Bootcamp

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-04-01 News

TL; DR: Prioritization Politics, Experiments w/ POPCORN — Food for Agile Thought #336

Welcome to the 336th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 34,938 peers. This week, we share a deep dive into the challenges of prioritization politics — as we product folks consider ourselves analytical and algorithmic — and the friction this causes with other stakeholders, namely “the business.” Hesitantly, we also point to a eulogy on #Taylorism, and we learn from Catherine Louis how her experience as a K9 handler and a search-and-rescue technician helped her coach teams live up to their potential.

We then introduce John Cutler’s POPCORN Flow, a ”framework for thinking about improvement experiments.” Moreover, Marty Cagan explains the essence of being in “product” by pointing at a long-thought lost Steve Jobs interview, and Janna Bastow interviews Melissa Perri on the secrets that create successful Product Ops teams.

Lastly, we analyze “21 lessons on the uses, abuses, and half-truths of the measuring innovation” and point to the pitfalls of a typical “transformation” that often starts with killing psychological safety in the opening phase. Finally, we close this week’s edition with a collection of PM memes starring Spiderman, Dilbert, Samuel L. Jackson, and Leonardo DiCaprio.