Food for Agile Thought #138: Large-Scale Agile, BDD Treaties, First Principles, Working w/ Engineers

Food for Agile Thought’s issue #138—shared with 16,548 peers—focuses on large-scale agile: Jeff Sutherland shares success stories from large organizations turning around, we learn about BDD treaties as a means to coordinate teams, and why self-selection of teams has such a profound impact on organizations.

We also dive deep into first principles. (If you like to ‘reinvent the wheel’ as a creative approach this article is for you.) Moreover, we improve our communication skills with developers and learn how to design and ship successful product.

Lastly, we address the need to protect our product creation process with tooth and claw to prevent becoming a feature factory.

Have a great week!

Food for Agile Thought #138: Large-Scale Agile, BDD Treaties, First Principles, Working w/ Engineers

🏆 The Tip of the Week

Jeff Sutherland and Darrell Rigby (via Harvard Business Review): Agile at Scale

Jeff Sutherland and Darrell Rigby on agile in practice at large organizations — from big ambitions to step-by-step progress.

Large-Scale Agile & Scrum

John Ferguson Smart: BDD Treaties – cross-team coordination with executable specifications

My fellow XSCALE steward John Smart on how to achieve better cross-team coordination with collaborative governance and executable specifications.

(via Farnam Street): First Principles: The Building Blocks of True Knowledge

Farnam Street on why first-principles thinking is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creativity.

Henry Stewart (via Corporate Rebels): A Happier Workplace? Let People Choose Their Manager

Henry Stewart on improving the happiness across an organization by overcoming people management principles from the past.

📯 Product Backlog Defense

Product backlog defense — make no mistake: Your product backlog is the last line of defense preventing your team from becoming a feature factory. Figure out a process that creates value for your customers. Moreover, have the courage — and the discipline — to defend it at all costs.

Large-scala agile: Product Backlog Defense — Age of Product

Read More: Product Backlog Defense.

Product & Lean

John Cutler (via Hackernoon): Working With Software Developers (9 Tips for Product Managers)

John Cutler turns his recent Twitter thread into a practical list of tips for PMs how to work with engineers.

Jeff Patton and Jeff Gothelf: 📻 How To Design and Ship Successful Products

Jeff Patton, Jeff Gothel, Colleen Johnson and Chris Murman discuss scrum product ownership, lean UX, product discovery, shipping to learn, and believability weighted design.

Casey Winters: Feature/Product Fit

Casey Winters asks the critical question: what happens after you find product/market fit, how do you improve the core product?

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Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #137: The Agile Manager, Scrum Master Trends 2018, Talking to Customers, Bug Prioritization.

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