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Food for Agile Thought #239: Spotify Model Fallacy, Empowered Engineers, Remote Discovery, Remote Design Sprint

TL; DR: Spotify Model Fallacy, Remote Discovery—Food for Agile Thought #239

Welcome to the 239th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 26,242 peers. This week, we point again at the Spotify Model fallacy; we understand the importance of empowered engineers to break out of the feature factory paradigm, and we put the org chart into the spotlight, the gateway to realizing change.

We also learn how to continue our product discovery efforts in today’s world of virtual communication; we look at the roots of innovation, and we are relieved that design sprints are open again for business—with a remote working guide from the maestro himself.

Lastly, we embrace an epic list of remote working resources, courtesy of InfoQ.

Did you miss last week’s Food for Agile Thought’s issue #238?

🗞 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 Tip of the Week: Spotify Model Fallacy

Jeremiah Lee: Failed #SquadGoals: Spotify doesn’t use “the Spotify model” and neither should you.

Jeremiah Lee looks back at his time at Spotify and analyzes why the Spotify squad model ultimately failed Spotify.

Agile & Scrum

Shane Hastie (via InfoQ): Working Remotely: Good Practices and Useful Resources

Shane Hastie and Charles Humble aggregated a treasure trove of remote working good practices and resources.

Marty Cagan: The Most Important Thing

Marty Cagan picks the one thing to change a team’s way of working — the one which the most significant lever.

Jasmine Chia and sam hagen (via epicpeople): The Org Chart as Political Map-Making

Jasmine Chia and Sam Hagen analyze the nature of org charts, a critical structural element for any change agent.

📅 🖥 Online Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I: May 25-28, 2020

This guaranteed online Professional Scrum Master training is an official Scrum.org class that leads to and includes the industry-recognized PSM I certification. The training is designed as a live virtual class of 4 hours per day and will be offered in German.

Additional services for this online Professional Scrum Master training:

  • Part of this virtual PSM training is also the free participation in the Distributed Agile Masterclass for Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and agile coaches by appointment.
  • On request and for an additional charge of € 299 incl. 19% VAT, it is also possible to take part in a classic PSM training class.

Learn more: 📅 🖥 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I — Online: May 25-28, 2020.

Product & Lean

Teresa Torres (via Mind The Product): 🎙 Remote Discovery

In this podcast, Teresa Torres shares how to make sure that you continue incorporating discovery into your practice.

Shane Parrish (via Farnam Street): Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: The Key to Innovation

Shane Parrish delves into innovation, from the not-invented-here syndrome to stealing ideas to Shakespeare.

Jake Knapp: The Remote Design Sprint Guide

Jake Knapp provides a step-by-step manual to organize design sprints with distributed teams in a virtual setting.

📯 Remote Agile (Part 6): Sprint Planning with Distributed Teams

We started this series on remote agile with looking into practices and tools, followed by exploring virtual Liberating Structures, and how to master Zoom. We had a look at common remote agile anti-patterns, and we analyzed remote Retrospectives based on Liberating Structures. This sixth article now dives into organizing a remote Sprint Planning with a distributed team: practices, virtual Liberating Structures, and lessons learned.

Read more: Remote Agile (Part 6): Sprint Planning with Distributed 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
🖥 🇩🇪 January 28-31, 2025 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; 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
🖥 🇬🇧 February 12-13, 2025 Professional Scrum Master Advanced Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 February 27, 2025 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class (PSFS; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 March 6-April3, 2025 GUARANTEED: Align, Discover, Deliver: The Product Backlog Management Cohort Class (English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Cohort €499 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇩🇪 March 11-12, 2025 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇬🇧 March 26-27, 2025 Professional Scrum Master Advanced Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇩🇪 April 10, 2025 Professional Product Discovery and Validation Class (PPDV; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT

See all upcoming classes here.

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 2,150-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

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✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn about the Spotify Model Fallacy: Join the 7,475-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 #238: Software Development Culture Report, Levels of Autonomy, Impact Mapping Comparison, Distributed Discovery.

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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