TL; DR: Agile Coaching, Swarming—Food for Agile Thought #226
Welcome to the 226th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 24,842 peers. This week, we address the state of agile coaching; we learn more about swarming for teams, and we go back in time to the origins of Scrum.
We also come back to the pitfalls of achieving product/market-fit; we declare backlog bankruptcy, and we check a mental model to assess whether a group of product managers is capable of handling their job.
Lastly, we embrace some unique cognitive human traits that will distinguish us from machines for all eternity. Hopefully.
TL; DR: Probabilistic Forecasting, HiPPO Training—Food for Agile Thought #225
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #225—shared with 24,837 peers—addresses the importance of pair programming; we seek to excel at predicting the future with probabilistic forecasting, and we appreciate an outsight view on Scrum by following sticky notes.
We also point at a crucial stakeholder management competence of Product Owners and Scrum Masters; we enjoy new games and exercises for ideation purposes, and we consider making our product worse for the sake of improving it.
Lastly, we embrace the coining of decaf resistance—it is good to know that a habitual behavior in so many organizations now has a name.
TL; DR: Descaling Manifesto, Cultivating Ownership, Release Planning, 5th Product Manager Report—Food for Agile Thought #224
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #224—shared with 24,821 peers—introduces the Descaling Manifesto; we address why great teams have the habit of ‘rule-breaking,’ and we analyze why great Scrum Masters are CEO-material.
We also revisit product releases; we download the 5th Product Manager Report, and we get back to output, outcome, input, effort, and how they are all related to each other.
Lastly, we enjoy a look behind the scenes at Netflix and talk about five levels of ownership.
TL; DR: Innovation Failure, Distributed Teams, PMs to CEOs, Keeping Track of Hypotheses—Food for Agile Thought #223
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #223—shared with 24,653 peers—addresses innovation failure; we revisit standups and what makes them successful, and we learn more about the magic stance of actively doing nothing.
We also delve into the ‘2019 Annual Product Management and Product Marketing Survey’ results; we pick up a few useful visualizations to explain product management to outsiders, and we consider bringing order to our user-related questions, hypotheses, and assumptions to prevent user research from turning ugly.
Lastly, we thank both VPs of Engineering from Buffer and Splice for sharing a guide on how to make distributed teams successful with us.
On our own account: Issue 224 will be delivered on January 12th, 2020. Enjoy a chillaxing Holiday season… 🎉
TL; DR: Agile Coaching Spotify Style, Empathy w/ Engineers—Food for Agile Thought #222
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #222—shared with 24,597 peers—addresses agile coaching Spotify style; we come back to technical debt—a never-ending story—, and we listen to a take on what high-performing engineering teams need.
We also learn how to empathize with engineers as a product manager; we pick up a formula on how to measure product/market fit, and we dive into seven likely cases of internal (product) politics.
Lastly, we dare to ask: what is sociocracy, and what is it good for?
TL; DR: Flow Thinking, Trust Building, North Star Playbook, Prediction & Planning — Food for Agile Thought #221
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #221—shared with 24,513 peers—addresses the evolution of flow thinking; we delve into visualizing of forecasts, OKR, and non-static roadmaps, and we learn how to build professional trust in the workspace.
We also appreciate a new guide on north star metrics; we face our industry’s dismal track record regarding dealing with uncertainty, and we agree on that product strategies shouldn’t be executed blindly, but inspected and adapted like all the rest.
Lastly, we thank Allan Holub for voicing the obvious: when teamwork becomes the new standard, HR techniques from the Roaring Twenties need to be ditched.
