Food for Agile Thought #252: Resolving Team Conflict, Ikigai & Cynefin, Adjacent User Theory, Reducing Churn

TL; DR: Resolving Team Conflict, Ikigai & Cynefin — Food for Agile Thought #252

Welcome to the 252nd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 26,787 peers. This week, we analyze options for resolving team conflict; we learn more about our team’s reason for being, and we think about how we are complicit in change fatigue.

We then advocate the unlearning of user stories, and we learn how to rejuvenate user growth by focusing on unlikely user groups. Moreover, we discover another five ways to tackle churn and improve retention.

Lastly, we embrace another help to get a hold on uncertainty and complexity with the Cynefin framework.

Food for Agile Thought #252: Resolving Team Conflict, Ikigai & Cynefin, Adjacent User Theory, Reducing Churn — Age-of-Product.com

Did you miss last week’s Food for Agile Thought’s issue #251?

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

🏆 The Tip of the Week: Resolving Team Conflict

Mike Griffiths: 5 Tools for Team Conflict Resolution

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Agile & Scrum

Jeff Gothelf: Ikigai – a formula for successful agile team leadership

Jeff Gothelf suggests a practice to learn the answer to the question of your team’s reason for being.

Len Lagestee: Let's Talk About Change Fatigue

Len Lagestee delves into how we contribute to our change fatigue and what we can do about it.

Harold Jarche: cynefin

Harold Jarche runs a retrospective on how the Cynefin framework has influenced his work.

📅 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I — Online: August 25-28, 2020

This guaranteed 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.

📅 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I — Online: August 25-28, 2020 — Berlin Product People GmbH

Learn more: 📅 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Master Live Virtual Class: August 25-28, 2020.

Product & Lean

Matt Philip: Stop writing stories, start validating working software

Matt Philip advocates the unlearning of user stories.

Andrew Chen and Bangaly Kaba: The Adjacent User Theory

Bangaly Kaba recalls how Instagram rejuvenated user growth by focusing on the Adjacent User Theory.

Jason Evanish: Slaying Churn Monsters: 5 ways to reduce churn better than an exit survey

Jason Evanish shares five ways to tackle churn and improve retention.

📯 Scrum’s Nature: It Is a Tool; It Is Not About Love or Hate

Regularly, we find articles from developers detailing why ‘Agile’ in general and Scrum’s nature, in particular, deserve our collective disdain.

What has always struck me in this discussion is the fact that Scrum is a tool useful to accomplish one primary task: delivering value to customers of emergent products in complex environments while mitigating an organization’s exposure to risk at the same time. So, if Scrum is not working in an organization, maybe it is because Scrum is applied to the wrong cause in the first place. Or, that its application has been mechanical, driven by folks who don’t know what they are doing. (Seriously, how hard can Scrum be if the manual comprises of 18 pages, right?)

The question then is: Why would I “hate” a tool unsuited for the intended purpose or applied incompetently? Would I hate a hammer for not being capable of accurately driving a screw into a wooden beam? Probably not, as the hammer wasn’t designed for that purpose, and neither sheer will-power nor stamping with your feet will change the fact.

Scrum’s Nature: It Is a Tool; It Is Not About Love or Hate — Age-of-Product.com

Read more: Scrum’s Nature: It Is a Tool; It Is Not About Love or Hate.

📅 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:

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🖥 💯 🇩🇪 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
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🖥 🇩🇪 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

See all upcoming classes here. 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.

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✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn about Resolving Team Conflict: Join the 7,900-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.

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🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #251: Software Factory Syndrome, Product Discovery, Contemporary Product Leadership, Future Press Release 2.0.

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