TL; DR: Pre-Mortems, Leaving the Feature Factory — Food for Agile Thought #271
Welcome to the 271st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 28,708 peers. This week, we understand the advantages of pre-mortems to kick-off agile transformations; we discover learning obstacles rooted in entrenched ways of operating, and we appreciate the learnings from a long yet successful lean transformation.
We then learn about how quarterly process changes can unshackle a product team to realize its full potential; we check a system to apply objectives and key results (OKR) to product management, and we acknowledge common traps of validating product ideas, such as false positives.
Lastly, we dissect the consequences of remote work, ranging from the remote hype cycle, the risk of return, new physical and digital solutions, and the implications of remote and hybrid work.
TL; DR: Agile’s Intangibles, Productive Uncertainty — Food for Agile Thought #270
Welcome to the 270th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 28,431 peers. This week, we cover Agile’s intangibles; we delve into innovation, risk mitigation, and creating value, and we analyze prerequisites of successful agile transformations at an organizational level.
We then learn about a developer’s perspective on what it takes to build a successful product development team. Also, we explore a handy tool for ordering Product Backlogs beyond the usual suspects like Cost of Delay, Kano model, or RICE, and we ask: “What else about product [management] is as ‘simple as it sounds’ but needs to be learned? Why do we fall into these traps?”
TL; DR: Estimating Cost of Delay, Re-Teaming — Food for Agile Thought #269
Welcome to the 269th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 28,267 peers. This week, we delve into estimating Cost of Delay; we identify nine signs that your CEO understands Scrum, and we learn that mental models impact the efficiency and accuracy in decision-making.
We then enjoy the essence of product leadership from a new Marty Cagan book; we get into measuring real progress as a product team, and we embrace the canary product launch approach to test the waters with a restricted set of clients.
Lastly, we applaud Ken & Jeff for releasing the new Scrum Guide 2020.
TL; DR: Decision Making, Technical Debt Explained — Food for Agile Thought #268
Welcome to the 268th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 28,041 peers. This week, we delve into the dirty secrets of decision making; we refresh our memory regarding eight agile estimation practices, and we take appreciation beyond the usual Kudo cards.
We then welcome eleven lessons on how to escape the build trap; we come back Lean’s four phases of a product’s lifecycle, and we learn more about the results of evaluating an app in a real-life context.
Lastly, we embrace another approach to understanding technical debt.
TL; DR: Psychopaths and Narcissists, Get Your Brain Back — Food for Agile Thought #267
Welcome to the 267th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 27,937 peers. This week, we learn how to deal with psychopaths and narcissists as a change agent; we move away from command & control to bring back creativity, and we figure out how agile contracting with customers works at an agency.
We then address eighteen product management paradoxes; we learn about eight avoidable mistakes when running experiments, and we get an overview of the results of a recent survey on OKRs and how organizations apply them in practice.
Lastly, we enjoy listening to Mary and Tom Poppendieck, sharing their thoughts on Lean as “a way of thinking that values people.”
TL; DR: Popular Component Teams, Team Morale in WFH Times — Food for Agile Thought #266
Welcome to the 266th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 27,841 peers. This week, we attempt to understand the why and how of popular component teams; we choose new practices to build team morale remotely, and we confront our anxiety of having to deal with emotional reactions at work.
We then mourn the passing of product roadmaps (just kidding, they’re alive and well); we have a look at Spotify’s new platform supporting product discovery, and we gain a better understanding of how to determine the pricing of a SaaS product.
Lastly, we enjoy reading another free chapter of “The Art of Agile Development, Second Edition.”
