TL; DR: Engineering Sanity, Skill Mapping — Food for Agile Thought #263
Welcome to the 263rd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 27,516 peers. This week, we delve into how UX can support engineering sanity; we study a recent survey among CIOs on technical debt, and we learn about options of remote engineers if they want to be noticed.
We then enjoy an audio guide to product discovery; we take it beyond the usual ‘output vs. outcome’ discussion, and we learn how to ask better questions when we need to decide what to measure on our quest to create value for customers.
Lastly, we are grateful for a downloadable template that supports skill mapping to identify educational needs.
Did you miss last week’s Food for Agile Thought’s issue #262?
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Engineering Sanity
(via InfoQ): Dev & UX: How Integrating UX Improves Engineering’s Efficiency and Sanity
Debbie Levitt advocates that UX is engineering’s time, money, and sanity saver.
Agile & Scrum
(via McKinsey & Company): Tech debt: Reclaiming tech equity
McKinsey provides data from a recent survey with CIOs on technical debt, 60 percent of whom believe it has risen over the past three years.
(via Triplebyte): Getting noticed as a remote engineer – and why it matters
Joseph Pacheco shares suggestions on how to not recede into the background. It is a good inspiration for Scrum Masters on how to support their Development Team members.
(via Nielsen Norman Group): Skill Mapping: A Digital Template for Remote Teams
Rachel Krause provides a template for skill mapping. Okay, it is focused on UX designers but can easily be adapted to support your Scrum Teams’ members.
📅 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I — Online: October 27-30, 2020
This guaranteed Professional Scrum Master training class is an official Scrum.org PSM 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.
Learn more: 📅 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Master Training PSM I — Online: October 27-30, 2020.
Product & Lean
: 🎙 A Brief Guide to Product Discovery
Roman Pichler offers an overview of product discovery, explaining its purpose and why it matters. Enjoy the audio version, too.
(via The Startup): Why “Outcomes Over Outputs” Is Flawed Advice
Jens-Fabian Goetzmann believes that merely considering output and outcome is insufficient to address the challenge.
(via Amplitude): Asking Better Questions
John Cutler delves into the art of questioning so that your team can make better decisions about what to measure.
📯 Product Roadmap First Principles
The end of 2020 is nearing, and it's product roadmap building time again—at least for those companies that are still dedicated to the old command-and-control model. In the next few weeks, executives and (key) stakeholders will come together and define new functionality that they believe will meet business demands in 2021.
While investing in product roadmaps can yield a reasonable return by creating a shared understanding between the “the business” and product teams, I also believe that product roadmaps need to be living artifacts requiring continuous attention by everyone involved. To make that process as worthwhile as possible, adhering to the following seven product roadmap first principles has proven beneficial in my experience.
Learn more: Product Roadmap First Principles.
📅 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:
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 2,450-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:
- 🆕 Remote Agile (1) Replay: Practices and Tools for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, and Product Owners.
- Scrum Sprint Retrospective Anti-Patterns.
- Scrum Master Anti-Patterns.
✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn about Engineering Sanity: Join the 8,300-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.