Food for Agile Thought’s issue #147—shared with 17,882 peers—addresses business agility and what is required to make it happen. We learn that merely scaling ‘agile’ is not the path as business agility also needs changes of a different nature. Overcoming the traditional budgeting process, for example.
Speaking of which, Steve Denning contributes ten axioms that make traditional managers anxious; ridiculing ‘agile’ is no longer an option to deal with it.
Lastly, we borrow six tips to handle demanding stakeholders without burning bridges, and we learn which low-hanging fruits to pick to make an excellent first impression as a newly hired product manager.
Have a great week!
🏆 The Essential Read
(via Medium): Scaling Agile is not the Path to Business Agility
Inês Almeida looks back at the innovations ‘agile’ brought. However, she also notes that the innovation engine has moved on.
Business Agility & Scrum
(via Forbes): Ten Agile Axioms That Make Managers Anxious
Steve Denning notes that the era when managers could confidently ridicule agile management practices is fading fast.
(via Corporate Rebels): Self-Management At Vagas: Zero Functional Hierarchy, No Targets, And Powerful Consensus
The Corporate Rebels portrait Vagas — Brazil’s market leader in e-recruitment — as an outstanding example of a progressive organization.
(via Beyond Budgeting Institute): Beyond Budgeting is needed to achieve business agility
Franz Röösli claims that enterprises cannot achieve business agility without changing the budgeting process and the underlying mindset.
📯 How to Create Whiteboards
Learn how to create whiteboards: Whiteboards are magic as they support foundational agile principles such as interaction, collaboration, face-to-face communication, or transparency. They facilitate adapting to change, continuous improvement, and the self-organization of team. You can create meaningful software with a few index cards, pins, pencils, and a drywall—you do not need Jira or any other agile process tools.
Read more: How to Create Whiteboards
Product & Lean
: Saying No to Stakeholders: 6 Tips for Product Owners
Mike Cohn shares six guidelines how you can say no politely but firmly.
(via ProdPad): Make an impact as a New Product Manager in just 30 Days
Liz Love suggests to take on the product backlog — the #1 low-hanging fruit for new product managers.
: Two answers you need to improve innovation success
Jeffrey Phillips points at a crucial mistake that executives and innovators make: Ignoring the probably missing alignment of discovery and strategy.
⁉️ Survey: What Are You Doing the Whole Day as a Scrum Master of One Team?
In other words: What are your regular chores as a scrum master supporting a single team?
Rumor has it that a great scrum master supports one team at a time. If that is true, how do you spend your time with the team members helping them to become self-organizing? Let’s gather some data and answer the question! (This survey is anonymous.)
Participate in the survey now: What Are You Doing the Whole Day?
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- Hands-on Agile Webinar #5 on sprint planning anti-patterns.
- Hands-on Agile Webinar #3 on agile failure patterns.
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🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition
Read more: Food for Agile Thought #146: Finding Agile Metrics, Product Bets, Business Agility, Bad Pressure.