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

Food for Agile Thought #290: Design Thinking Scrum, Product vs. Project Teams, Agile Leadership Practice Library, Disrupting Disrupters

by Stefan Wolpers | 2021-05-02 News

TL; DR: Design Thinking Scrum—Food for Agile Thought #290

Welcome to the 290th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 31,083 peers. This week, we delve into Design Thinking Scrum, and we note that most frameworks pay a lot of attention to decision making, less, though, to understanding decisions. We also share the agile leadership practice library, and we point at the12th principle of the Agile Manifesto: A self-managing team also needs to be a self-learning team.

We then point at the advantages of product teams over project teams, and we learn when and how to get involved with Lean, Agile, and Design Thinking regarding your product lifecycle. Moreover, we enjoy describing a hiring process based on auditioning, not interviewing, the best candidates.

Lastly, we appreciate ThoughtWork’s latest version of its tech radar, and we ask: Who Disrupts the Disrupters?

Food for Agile Thought #290: Design Thinking Scrum, Product vs. Project Teams, Agile Leadership Practice Library, Disrupting Disrupters — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #289: FAST Agile, OKRs’ Dark Side, PM Competency Framework, Breaking into Product Management

by Stefan Wolpers | 2021-04-25 News

TL; DR: FAST Agile, OKRs’ Dark Side—Food for Agile Thought #289

Welcome to the 289th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 31,016 peers. This week, we delve into FAST Agile to fill the gap for a purely complex agile method. We examine the Boeing 737 Max crashes through the lens of industry and corporate culture, and we point at OKRs’ dark side—their dual-use nature and the inherent prospective misuse potential in the hands of traditional performance management protagonists.

We then share the open-source template of the ‘Product Management Competency Framework;’ we explore the topic of design justice, and we enjoy a teacher’s story of breaking into product management without a CS degree.

Lastly, we point at the pre-requisits of shifting from a traditional management style to genuinely remote leadership, from remote-first to avoiding the rookie mistake of applying controlling tools.

Food for Agile Thought #289: FAST Agile, OKRs’ Dark Side, PM Competency Framework, Breaking into Product Management —Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #288: Product-Led Is Also Bad, Improving Code Reviews, 4 Questions From CTO to CPO, Rapid Design Thinking

by Stefan Wolpers | 2021-04-18 News

TL; DR: Product-Led Is Also Bad, From CTO to CPO—Food for Agile Thought #288

Welcome to the 288th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 30,952 peers. This week, we counter the popular complaint from product folks that their organization’s sales-drivenness impedes the creation of better products. We also explore the secret ingredients of building high-performance teams, and we suggest a few improvements for a critical step in creating useful software.

We then answer four questions regarding modern product management, from skills to metrics to how engineering can be supportive. Moreover, we share a guide on how to figure out the level of customer satisfaction that allows for sustained growth, and we select product metrics that matter—beyond the usual suspects like NPS.

Lastly, we follow Bill Wake’s reflections on “half-waterfall,” a blend of practices based on upfront planning and agile.

Food for Agile Thought #288: Product-Led Is Also Bad, Improving Code Reviews, 4 Questions From CTO to CPO, Rapid Design Thinking — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #287: The Systems Change Problem, Agile Death Spirals, Talking to Customers as a Dev, OKRs in Agile Infographic

by Stefan Wolpers | 2021-04-11 News

TL; DR: The Systems Change Problem, Agile Death Spirals—Food for Agile Thought #287

Welcome to the 287th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 30,878 peers. This week, we address the systems change problem and that an ‘agile transformation’ is often no more than the first initiative to clear a path to introduce agile ways of working. Also, we explain the Haier Model—Rendanheyi, microenterprises, micro-communities, and ecosystems—in a short animation.

We then discuss the two first principles of continuous product discovery; we enjoy a war story from the trenches of product discovery at Victoria’s Secret, and we come back to the common idea that ‘prioritization’ is a trivial mechanical process run on autopilot. (Spoiler alert: it’s not that trivial.)

Lastly, we point at the elephant in the room: companies use unsuitable metrics to track their innovation efforts.

Food for Agile Thought #287: The Systems Change Problem, Agile Death Spirals, Talking to Customers as a Dev, OKRs in Agile Infographic — Age-of-Product.com

The virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021 Has A Job Opening

by Stefan Wolpers | News

TL; DR: The virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021 Has A Job Opening

I am looking for someone (m/f/x) to support me in running the Agile Camp Berlin 2021; use the form below to apply for the job.

The virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021

The virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021 (ACB21) will take place from May 27 to May 29, 2021, from 1 pm to 7 pm CEST. You can find all information on the event here: Virtual Agile Camp Berlin from May 27-29, 2021.

As of 2021-04-10, we are 130-plus participants, and I expect the number to grow to probably 200. Since we are not giving away free tickets, I expect a high show rate among the attendees.

The Job Opening at the Agile Camp Berlin 2021

I am looking for someone (m/f/x) to support me in running the Agile Camp Berlin 2021. For example, your tasks would cover:

Admitting attendees to the event
Inviting attendees to the ACB21 Slack channel
Pointing attendees to where they can find more information
Updating the public schedule.

Generally, it is about addressing questions and issues that attendees might have and supporting them to have the best experience possible.

Your main working hours would be:

May 27, 2021, from 1-7 pm CEST: Day 1 of the Agile Camp Berlin 2021.
May 28, 2021, from 1-7 pm CEST: Day 2 of the Agile Camp Berlin 2021.

On May 27 and May 28, I will host the live-stream of the ACB21 from 2-6 pm. Hence, I won’t be able to support you full time during these sessions. (Please note: You won’t be able to attend any session on either May 27 or 28. Feel free, though, to join the sessions on May 29, 2021.)

Remuneration will be in the ballpark of USD 500/€450; our accountant is still working on the details. (For residents of Germany, we plan to go with a mini-job.)

If that sounds interesting to you, please spend five minutes on the following application form:

Loading…

Visit the form directly on Google Forms.

Food for Agile Thought #286: Rethinking Bad Decisions, Scrumban Is Not a Mere Hybrid, Product Discovery Excuses, Metrics Maturity

by Stefan Wolpers | 2021-04-04 News

TL; DR: Rethinking Bad Decisions, Metrics Maturity—Food for Agile Thought #286

Welcome to the 286th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 30,802 peers. This week, we figure out how rethinking bad decisions may work; we learn why postponing the decision on who will work on something is beneficial for Scrum teams, and we suggest starting Scrumban with either Kanban or Scrum and then add some flavor from the other practice.

We then learn more about common anti-patterns with product discovery, from ‘there is no demand’ to ‘we don’t have time,’ and we delve into the learnings from the book ‘Working Backwards’ on Amazon’s way of creating products. Also, we suggest a way to figure out whether our team is genuinely evidence-driven.

Lastly, we cherish a board design that elicits questions, for example, to guide qualitative research.