Food for Agile Thought #190: Agile Budgeting, Agile Architecture, Mental Models, Product Ethics

Food for Agile Thought’s issue #190—shared with 21,794 peers—focuses on agile budgeting — or why the industrial model of handling money is preventing companies from becoming agile —; we learn to distinguish between emergent architecture and architecture by chance, and we come back to technical debt once more.

We also embrace the idea of not harming people and our societies with new products. We learn more about visualizing experiments, and we abandon the idea of misusing the Sprint Planning for creating the perfect plan—control is an illusion.

Lastly, we enjoy Sam Harris Shane Parrish reflecting on mental models, decision making, and the tricks your mind is playing with you.

Did you miss last week’s Food for Agile Thought’s issue #189?

🏆 The Essential Read

Sam Harris and Shane Parrish: Mental Models

Sam Harris and Shane Parrish discuss some of the mental models that should guide our thinking and behavior.

Source: Mental Models

Authors: Sam Harris and Shane Parrish

Agile Budgeting & Scrum

Michael Küsters: Agile Architecture

Michael Küsters outlines the significant difference between ‘emergent architecture’ and ‘architecture by chance.’

Source: Agile Architecture

Author: Michael Küsters

Steve Denning (via Forbes): Why Budgeting Cripples Agile And Innovation

Agile budgeting: Steve Denning analyses why the budget often constitutes a major stumbling block to creating a truly agile organization.

Source: Forbes: Why Budgeting Cripples Agile And Innovation

Author: Steve Denning

Matthew O'Riordan (via DZone): Technical Debt: The Good, the Bad, and the Reckless

Matthew O'Riordan reflects on how to avoid unnecessary technical debt and how to detect it when you are on the brink of acquiring it.

Source: DZone: Technical Debt: The Good, the Bad, and the Reckless

Author: Matthew O'Riordan

Product & Lean

Roman Pichler: Product Ethics

Roman Pichler points at the importance that we take responsibility for the ramifications of our products and make ethically sound product decisions.

Source: Product Ethics

Author: Roman Pichler

Mike Cohn: Why Sprint Planning Meetings Won’t Deliver Perfect Plans

Mike Cohn reminds us of the emergent nature of the Sprint Backlog.

Source: Why Sprint Planning Meetings Won’t Deliver Perfect Plans

Author: Mike Cohn

Becca Bruggman (via Optimizely Blog): 6 Tactics to Make your Digital Experimentation Program More Visible

Becca Bruggman advocates visualizing the entire lifecycle of experimentation.

Source: Optimizely Blog: 6 Tactics to Make your Digital Experimentation Program More Visible

Author: Becca Bruggman

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🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #189: Agile Maturity Models, Liberating Structures & Scrum, Don’t Trust Agile, UX & Scrum.