Food for Agile Thought #223: Innovation Failure, Distributed Teams, PMs to CEOs, Keeping Track of Hypotheses

TL; DR: Innovation Failure, Distributed Teams, PMs to CEOs, Keeping Track of Hypotheses—Food for Agile Thought #223

Food for Agile Thought’s issue #223—shared with 24,653 peers—addresses innovation failure; we revisit standups and what makes them successful, and we learn more about the magic stance of actively doing nothing.

We also delve into the ‘2019 Annual Product Management and Product Marketing Survey’ results; we pick up a few useful visualizations to explain product management to outsiders, and we consider bringing order to our user-related questions, hypotheses, and assumptions to prevent user research from turning ugly.

Lastly, we thank both VPs of Engineering from Buffer and Splice for sharing a guide on how to make distributed teams successful with us.

On our own account: Issue 224 will be delivered on January 12th, 2020. Enjoy a chillaxing Holiday season… 🎉

Did you miss last week’s Food for Agile Thought’s issue #222?

Food for Agile Thought #223: Innovation Failure, Distributed Teams, PMs to CEOs, Keeping Track of Hypotheses

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Scrum Guide 2020 — Download the new edition of the Scrum Guide Reordered — Age-of-Product.com

🏆 The Essential Post: Innovation Failure

Tim Harford: 🎙 Cautionary Tales Ep 6: How Britain Invented, Then Ignored, Blitzkrieg

In this podcast, the undercover economist takes us back in history, pointing at why innovative incumbents fail to exploit their ideas with the finishing line in sight.

📅 Agile Camp Berlin 2020 — The Last Minute 🎄 Gift

The Agile Camp Berlin 2020 will happen from April 17-18, 2020, at the Evangelische Schule Berlin Zentrum right in the center of Berlin.

The ACB2020 tickets are available now—and for ten lucky people, using the code XmasACB2020 will save € 20 on the ticket price.

Learn more: 📅 Agile Camp Berlin 2020 — We Are Back!

Agile & Scrum

Bas Vodde (via LeSS): Actively Doing Nothing

Bas Vodde explains what this magic Scrum Master stance is all about. Spoiler alert: it is hard.

Ron Lichty: Better Standups

Ron Lichty delves into what constitutes a productive standup.

(via Increment): A guide to distributed teams

Katie Womersley of Buffer and Juan Pablo Buriticá of Splice wrote an epic guide on how to make distributed engineering teams happy and productive.

📯 Agile Movers & Shakers (2): Diana Larsen

While Diana Larsen continues her coaching, mentoring, and consulting practice in a limited way, she has shifted more toward involvement as a co-founder of the Agile Fluency Project, a startup that is intended to help agile coaches grow and strengthen their practices with the Agile Fluency Suite of materials and the Agile Fluency Game.

Agile Movers & Shakers: Diana Larsen

Learn more: Agile Movers & Shakers (2): Diana Larsen.

Product & Lean

Curtis Stanier (via The Startup): 6 diagrams I use to explain Product Management concepts

Curtis Stanier shares some of his visualizations to help others understand key ideas in product management.

(via ProductCraft): What PMs Wish They Could Tell Their CEOs

Philip Alexander reports on how CEOs can support product managers according to the ‘2019 Annual Product Management and Product Marketing Survey.’

Rachel Krause (via Nielsen Norman Group): Tracking Research Questions, Assumptions, and Facts in Agile

Rachel Krause suggests keeping track of user-related questions, hypotheses, and assumptions in a knowledge board.

📅 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 6-7, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 November 21, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class (PSFS; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇩🇪 December 4-5, 2024 Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,189 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇩🇪 December 10-11, 2024 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
Professional Scrum Training by PST Stefan Wolpers, Berlin  Product People

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.


Scrum Guide Reordered Free Download Age-of-Product.com

📺 Join 1,825-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

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✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn about Innovation Failure: Join the 6,500-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.

Large scale agile: Join the Hands-on Agile Slack Group

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.

Scrum Master Interview Question: free download of the most popular ebook on Scrum Master job interviews — by Age-of-Product

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #222: Agile Coaching Spotify Style, Empathy w/ Engineers, Sociocracy, Internal Politics for PMs.

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