Food for Agile Thought’s issue #161—shared with 19,269 peers—covers Toyota Scrum, a combination of the Toyota Production System and Scrum, we learn that Lean, Agile and Design Thinking absolutely make good partners, and how Ron Jeffries might express XP practices nowadays.
We then borrow leadership practices from winning sports teams for Scrum teams, we take five tips to heart to prevent product failures, and we gain new insight on how to de-risk the innovation process.
Lastly, we dive into a notorious decision making trap: the sunk cost fallacy.
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #160—shared with 19,162 peers—addresses a need we all share: our whiteboard skills. We also follow Ian Mitchell’s idea to move from predicting a shipping date to providing a likelihood of completion with Monte Carlo forecasting. We also appreciate Ron Jeffries’ thoughts beyond XP and Scrum.
We then revisit a favorite topic—how to deal with our nemesis, the sales folks—, we consider complementing Design Thinking with Scrum, and we learn how to become faster than the competition in identifying the non-obvious, yet lucrative market opportunity.
Lastly, we have another survey running: join 140-plus peers and share your greatest success solving an issue outside your sphere of control.
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #159—shared with 19,054 peers—covers the agile industrial complex and its fake-agile distortion field, according to Daniel Mezick, we kick-off new Scrum teams, and we advocate to manage the flow of work, not people.
We also appreciate another success story from the continuous product discovery field, supported by a proven & tested reference idea funnel, and ask: is Design Thinking merely preserving the status quo?
Lastly, we address agile sensemaking—a visualization of working and learning in a state of perpetual beta.
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #158—shared with 18,935 peers—visits the poster child of self-managed organizations—Semco—, we deal with building trust in teams, and we learn why agile companies no longer require plans.
We appreciate Roman Pichler’s sprint planning tips & tricks for product owners, we dive into the commandments of outstanding products, and we understand how falling in love with a solution can wreck a whole organization.
Lastly, we come back to product discovery and learn a new approach how to reinvent a strategy to figure out what’s worth building.
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #157—shared with 18,862 peers—applauds Martin Fowler for his Agile Australia keynote on Agile 2018, we learn about the road to mediocrity, and we ask: Is the Peter Principle not a satire but reality?
We also address the issue of hidden (technical) costs of being ‘agile,’ as well the how to solve the conflict between prioritizing business needs as well as maintaining the health of the code base.
Lastly, we deal with the challenges of planning poker in a short and entertaining video.
Food for Agile Thought’s issue #156—shared with 18,778 peers—focuses on servant leadership, why change cannot be rushed, and how one road to enterprise business agility may look like.
We also have a look at mental models for product managers/owner; we learn how free time from our schedules to run user interviews regularly, and how to avoid failure when reaching for product/market fit.
Lastly, we like to thank Bartosz for compiling a great list of resources to help us to apply servant leadership in the trenches. 🙏
