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Food for Agile Thought #219: Conflict Fear, Tough Conversations, Product Owner Stances, Skip MVPs

TL; DR: Conflict Fear, Tough Conversations — Food for Agile Thought #219

Food for Agile Thought’s issue #219—shared with 24,328 peers—focuses on how to handle tough conversations and overcome conflict fear. We also appreciate a team-building canvas based on core protocols.

We then educate ourselves on the different stances of the Product Owner role; we give skipping the minimum viable product a second thought, and we embrace one more time the benefits of transparency to build trust.

Lastly, we enjoy a short lesson from the trenches on how holacracy works.

Did you miss last week’s Food for Agile Thought’s issue #218?

🗞 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

Sandy Mamoli (via InfoQ): How I Tried Holacracy and Lived to Tell the Tale

Sandy Mamoli shares from her successes and failures in her team’s quest to create a self-organizing organization, what worked and what didn’t.

📯 Join more than 250 Peers and Participate in the Agile Metrics Survey 2020

Let’s stop guessing and start crowdsourcing data and information on this critical topic: Who is using what metrics under which context to what success? Participate in the agile metrics survey now.

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Learn more: Agile Metrics Survey 2020.

Agile & Scrum: Conflict Fear

Emily Ludolph (via 99u): 8 Ways to Flip Your Fear of Conflict

Emily Ludolph describes eight steps of how to stop being scared of disagreements and make them productive.

Len Lagestee: On Having the Tough Conversations

Len Lagestee shares a simple framework on how to prepare yourself — the coach — for the inevitable dreaded disputes to come.

Richard Kasperowski: Want an Awesome Team? Start With You.

Richard Kasperowski proposes the team transformation canvas—based on core protocols—to facilitate a fast individual and team boot-up.

📅 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I + Liberating Structures — Berlin, February 18-20, 2020

This extended PSM class adds a third day to the Professional Scrum Master training that focuses on the application of Liberating Structures to Scrum Events such as the Sprint Retrospective or the Sprint Review — to apply the PSM training immediately to practical problems. The class will be offered in English. You can book your ticket right here:

Learn more: 📅 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I + Liberating Structures — Berlin, February 18-20, 2020.

Product & Lean

(via Scrum.org): Stances of the Product Owner

Robbin Schuurman and Chris Lukassen created a new training class for Product Owners, detailing the path of becoming professional in their role.

John Maeda (via Fast Company): It’s time to stop designing “minimum viable products”

In this excerpt from his new book, John Maeda reveals how the increased customer expectation in new products came to be, probably leading to the demise of the MVP.

Ellen Gottesdiener: How to Make Product Decisions With Transparency and Trust

Ellen Gottesdiener points at the benefits product managers can create by creating transparency and trust with their teams.

📅 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
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 November 21, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class (PSFS; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 December 10-11, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 December 12, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Product Discovery and Validation Class (PPDV; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 December 18-19, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Master Advanced Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Feburary 4-6, 2025 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile 2025: From Concept-Based to Context-Based Agility (English) Live Virtual Conference FREE
🖥 🇩🇪 January 28-31, 2025 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇬🇧 February 12-13, 2025 Professional Scrum Master Advanced Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT

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 1,775-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

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✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn about Conflict Fear: Join the 6,325-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 #218: Alignment & Autonomy, Waterfall, Parkinson’s Law, Hypothesis Prioritization, UX Research in Agile.

Categories: News
Stefan Wolpers: Stefan, based near Hamburg, Germany, has worked for 18-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.” He has developed B2C as well as B2B software, for startups as well as 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.
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