Food for Agile Thought’s issue #150—shared with 18,194 peers—focuses on the role of the agile manager — from the perspective of the incumbent middle management. We also address changing the culture: what six steps are required and why putting up new value posters is futile.
We then take a deep dive into product prioritization and how to figure out what is worth building. Moreover, Andrew Chen provides a great collection of essays for those working on marketplaces.
Finally, the question of whether Scrum is iterative or incremental is answered.
Have a great week!
🏆 The Essential Read
(via McKinsey Quarterly): The agile manager
McKinsey Quarterly looks at the ‘Spotify’ model from the perspective of the incumbent middle management. (Probably not realizing that there is no ‘Spotify’ model.)
Agile Manager & Scrum
(via Agile Alliance): Changing the Culture by Changing Habits
Jutta Eckstein and John Buck point to the fact that culture will not change by propagating different values, but by changing habits and behaviors.
: How To Change Your Organizational Culture
Michael Sahota claims there are the six essential steps to change your organization’s culture.
: Iterative and Incremental
Ron Jeffries details why Scrum and eXtreme Programming are both iterative and incremental.
📯 Agile Transformation: Mastery, Autonomy & Purpose
Master autonomy purpose — in this article, Michael Gibson presents a slightly different way of viewing agile maturity, through Dan Pink's lens of Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose; as a simple and useful way of fostering conversations and ensuring all relevant perspectives are considered.
Read more: Agile Transformation: Mastery, Autonomy & Purpose.
Product & Lean
(via O'Reilly Radar): How to decide what product to build
Scott Hurff shares the third chapter from his book ‘Designing Products People Love.’
(via Medium): Just One More Sprint!?
John Cutler highlights some fundamental product development prioritization concepts.
: Required reading for marketplace startups: The 20 best essays
Andrew Chen of a16z shares a great curation of articles on how to create and grow marketplaces.
📺 Join 500-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age of Product Youtube channel:
- 🆕 Hands-on Agile Webinar #6 on product owner anti-patterns.
- 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 #149: Multitasking Fallacy, Scaling Scrum, Agile Is a Cult, Agile Org Design.