X

Food for Agile Thought #216: Product-Market Fit, Agile Contracts, Accelerating User Research, Daily Scrum Anti-Patterns

Food for Agile Thought’s issue #216—shared with 24,073 peers—delves into the product-market fit concept with statistics, frameworks, and models; we discover the essential elements of high performing teams, and we kiss fixed-everything contracts good-bye.

We also learn from Spotify how to speed up user research by not focusing on running more user interviews, and we look behind the scenes of WeChat and its — by Western standards — unconventional approach to innovation.

Lastly, we enjoy the unpacking of “iteration” and question the language of our community.

Did you miss last week’s Food for Agile Thought’s issue #215?

🗞 Do you want to get this article in your inbox in the future? You can sign up here for our weekly ‘Food of Agile Thought newsletter’ and join 29k other subscribers.

🏆 The Essential Post: Product-Market Fit

Rahul Vohra (via This Week In Startups): 📺 Superhuman CEO on Product-Market Fit

Rahul Vohra shares excellent insights and statistics from Superhuman’s journey to achieving product/market-fit.

Agile & Scrum

Andy Cleff: Trust, Ownership, and Vision: Necessary for High Performance

Andy Cleff elaborates on the essential elements for high-performing, self-managing teams.

Henk van der Schuur (via Medium): Bye Bye Time & Materials: Entering the Era of Agile, Value-based Agreements

Henk van der Schuur suggests agile, value-based agreements instead of fixed-everything contracts.

Charles Lambdin (via Medium): Words Matter: Unpacking ‘Iterate’

Charles Lambdin delves into language, distinguishing ‘iteration’ from ‘increment.’

📅 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I — Berlin, November 27-28, 2019

Join your peers for this hands-on Scrum Master training, including up to two attempts at the Professional Scrum Master® I certification by Scrum.org. Learn everything about empiricism, self-organization & the ‘Definition of Done’ in two energizing days in Berlin, Nov 27-28, 2019.

Learn more: 📅 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I — Berlin, November 27-28, 2019.

Product & Lean

(via Notion): Finding product-market fit: models and frameworks for SaaS companies

Stephen Millard and Joshua Olusanya introduce Notion’s PMF framework of how to understand where to allocate more capital.

(via epicpeople): Accelerating User Research: How We Structure Insights for Speed At Spotify

Sara Belt reflects on integrating research into the product development practice and speeding up organizations’ ability to learn and iterate overall.

Julian Birkinshaw (via Harvard Business Review): The Kind of Creative Thinking That Fueled WeChat’s Success

Julian Birkinshaw reports on the vision – or grand design — of WeChat, which is remarkably different from, for example, the design thinking approach to innovation.

📯 Daily Scrum Anti-Patterns: 20 Ways to Improve

In my experience, the Daily Scrum is the Scrum event with the highest anti-pattern density among all events. Learn more about the Daily Scrum anti-patterns that threaten to derail your agile transition.

Read more: Daily Scrum Anti-Patterns: 20 Ways to Improve.

📅 Scrum Training & Event Schedule

You can secure your seat for Scrum training classes, workshops, and meetups directly by following the corresponding link in the table below:

Date Class and Language City Price
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 15-29, 2026 Guaranteed: Claude Cowork BootCamp (English; Live Virtual Cohort) Live Virtual Cohort $149 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.)
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 April 22-23, 2026 Guaranteed: Professional Scrum Product Owner – AI Essentials Training (PSPO AIE; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €799 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.)
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 May 19-20, 2026 Guaranteed: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.)
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 28 to June 25, 2026 Guaranteed: AI4Agile BootCamp #7 (English; Live Virtual Cohort) Live Virtual Cohort €499 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.)

You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.


📺 Join 1,750-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:

✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn about Product-Market Fit: Join the 6,225-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community

I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack Community and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.

If you like to join all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #215: Agility Flywheel, Transformation Failures, Fostering Collaboration, Customer-Centricity.

Categories: News
Stefan Wolpers: Stefan, based near Hamburg, Germany, has worked for 20-plus years as a Product Manager, Product Owner, Agile Coach, and Scrum Master. He is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org and the author of Pearson’s “Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide.” Recently, he began exploring how generative AI will impact agile product development, educating agile practitioners on how to utilize the new technology effectively. He has developed B2C and B2B software for startups and corporations, including a former Google subsidiary. Stefan curates the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and organizes the Hands-on Agile Conference, a Barcamp for agile practitioners.
Related Post