Category: News

TL; DR: MAHD — Agile for Hardware, Product Ops Overview — Food for Agile Thought #324

Welcome to the 324th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,869 peers. This week, we provide a primer for the Modified Agile for Hardware Development (MAHD) framework and its differences from generic Scrum. Also, we aim to understand the implication of growth and fixed mindsets for change, communication, and collaboration, and we challenge you to think about your office space from an anthropological point of view: Does it generate competition or collaboration between tribes?

We then share a list of helpful and damaging definitions of what Product Ops represents, and we move to download the free 7th ‘State of Product Management’ report based on the responses from over 2,000 product managers. Moreover, we point at a necessary trait of successful product teams: While using the big pictures to guide their work, they can also ship new stuff.

Lastly, we explore ways of measuring the predictability of teams, from ‘say/do’ to ‘meeting expectations’ to ‘aging WIP,’ and we point at a critical component of any innovation validation track to allow for an informed decision process: The experiment. Finally, we suggest a different approach to dealing with complex organizations and their inherent challenges: Knowing where to look for problems by figuring out who reports to whom.

TL; DR: Fortress Agile, The Technical PM — Food for Agile Thought #323

Welcome to the 323rd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,816 peers. This week, we share practical tips for the Fortress Agile on caring for the humans in your team when the organization is less agile than we would need it to be. Additionally, we share Charlie Munger’s magnum opus on why we behave the way we do, and we point to an observation that failure cultures focus on delivering things instead of value.

We then provide five highly actionable tips on becoming a more technical product manager. Moreover, we share successful product-led development patterns, and we ask: Do You Have a Product Mindset?

Lastly, we appreciate the first of a series of articles on becoming good at influence mapping, and we point at the elephant in the room: What if — despite all efforts — customer behavior isn’t moving in the right direction?

PS: 🎄 Happy Holiday Season!

PPS: 🗞 Food for Agile Thought will be back on January 9, 2022, with issue 324. Stay tuned!

TL; DR: Tech Trends 2022, Product Success Factors — Food for Agile Thought #322

Welcome to the 322nd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,755 peers. This week, we explore macro and strategic tech trends in 2022, from Web3 to Crypto to the Metaverse. Also, we point at a conceptual tool to help leaders understand that they need to change course; we suggest hands-on, practical solutions to an age-old software development problem, and we point at the downside of the growing popularity regarding “Agile,” Sociocracy, or Holacracy.

We then analyze four factors that significantly contribute to sustained product success and suggest applying those best. Next, we join Netflix’s co-founder when he elaborates on a recipe for aspiring disrupters: ‘Just focus on the market that nobody is paying attention to.’ Moreover, we point at a challenging topic for agile teams working remotely: ‘Does your manager trust that you are really working?’

Lastly, we appreciate that Venkatesh Rao shares the main slides—including notes—from his observe–orient–decide–act loop workshop, and we walk through applying a fantastic tool developed by Sakichi Toyoda in the 1930s.

TL; DR: Product Sprawl, Premature Convergence — Food for Agile Thought #321

Welcome to the 321st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,718 peers. This week, we look under the hood of many presumably well-planned products only to discover product sprawl. Also, we point to the fact that the term ‘Agile Coach’ covers a whole family of roles, and we share results of a study that sheds new light on team autonomy: Teams should choose either teammates or ideas but not both.

We then explain what happens when a team decides on a direction or tactic too early, and we compare the two different concepts of product-led and engineering-led organizations to create value. Moreover, we listen to Melissa Perri talking to David Bland, covering how to identify experiment-worthy assumptions, deal with slow feedback, and generally walk the (experiments) walk. Finally, we provide a practical introduction to the preferred discovery and alignment tool to help people get on the same page.

Lastly, we share lessons learned from Redgate Software’s deliberate reteaming process and the results from a survey of ‘100 industry participants on their perception of the benefits and challenges of adopting the SAFe framework.’

TL; DR: The Core Belief Model, Agile Principles — Food for Agile Thought #320

Welcome to the 320th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,679 peers. This week, we point at the importance of an organization’s mindset as the starting point for any meaningful transformation, introducing the Core Belief Model. Also, we learn from McKinsey’s interview of six bp leaders on their learnings and reflections regarding a successful transformation, and we delve into the basics of ‘agile,’ from ‘starting with Why’ to the people factor to the perils of shielding teams from clients.

We then delve into the magic math behind an organizational culture where innovation thrives and into the differences between a PoC, a prototype, and an MVP. Also, we sketch four critical negotiations for product managers, from the overly optimistic salesperson to the executive with an ‘excellent’ idea, and we share a new canvas for the jobs-to-be-done framework to help you avoid unnecessary pivoting and churn.

Lastly, we appreciate Richard Kasperowski interviewing Mary and Tom Poppendieck on what you can do to keep your team together in this challenging time, and we share eight games to hack your culture to unlock high performance. Moreover, we learn that Péter Horváth believes that you should not simply ask ‘why’ five times in a row — for multiple psychological reasons.

TL; DR: 20 Product Prioritization Techniques, The Simplified Scrum Guide — Food for Agile Thought #319

Welcome to the 319th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 33,623 peers. This week, we point to an epic guide on 20 product prioritization techniques, and we summarize seven lessons learned on change; from change is happening anyway to you never know when your efforts will pay off. Also, we point to an ‘extremely simplified definition of the Scrum framework,’ primarily based on the SG 2020 with a bit of the 2017 edition.

We then delve into gold-plating and its consequences, and we share Lenny Rachitsky’s definition of the job of a product manager, from delivering business impact to solving the most impactful customer problems. Moreover, we follow Teresa Torres when she suggests avoiding hands-offs between the product trio leading discovery and the team building the product.

Lastly, we praise the best-designed ‘thinking tool’ in history; we share Jeff Gothelf’s free OKR tracking spreadsheet using Google Docs, and we provide a good primer on how a statistical method can contribute to your team’s forecasting quality.