Food for Agile Thought #287: The Systems Change Problem, Agile Death Spirals, Talking to Customers as a Dev, OKRs in Agile Infographic

TL; DR: The Systems Change Problem, Agile Death Spirals—Food for Agile Thought #287

Welcome to the 287th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 30,878 peers. This week, we address the systems change problem and that an ‘agile transformation’ is often no more than the first initiative to clear a path to introduce agile ways of working. Also, we explain the Haier Model—Rendanheyi, microenterprises, micro-communities, and ecosystems—in a short animation.

We then discuss the two first principles of continuous product discovery; we enjoy a war story from the trenches of product discovery at Victoria’s Secret, and we come back to the common idea that ‘prioritization’ is a trivial mechanical process run on autopilot. (Spoiler alert: it’s not that trivial.)

Lastly, we point at the elephant in the room: companies use unsuitable metrics to track their innovation efforts.

Food for Agile Thought #287: The Systems Change Problem, Agile Death Spirals, Talking to Customers as a Dev, OKRs in Agile Infographic — Age-of-Product.com

Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue #286?

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📅 🖥 Virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021 — May 27-29, 2021 — vACB21 — Hosted by Berlin Product People GmbH

Join more than 120 peers from May 27-29, 2021, for the Virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021, a live virtual Barcamp using open space technology principles and practices.

🏆 The Tip of the Week: The Systems Change Problem

Kevin Starr (via Stanford Social Innovation): We’re Beating Systems Change to Death

Kevin Starr claims systems change is rather a destination than a journey and proposes an approach to getting there.

➿ Agile & Scrum

Jutta Eckstein and Hendrik Esser (via Agile Alliance): Escaping the Death Spiral of Your Agile Transformation

Jutta Eckstein, Eric Abelen, and Hendrik Esser claim that an ‘agile transformation’ is often no more than the first initiative to clear a path to introduce agile ways of working.

(via Corporate Rebels): 📺 Video Animation: How Haier Works

Corporate Rebels explain the Haier Model—Rendanheyi, microenterprises, micro-communities, and ecosystems—in a short animation.

Michael Sahota: Teal Organization: Do You Have What it Takes?

Michael Sahota reflects on Frederic Laloux’s idea of the ultimate high-performance organization and how to achieve that organizational success level.

🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM I Certificate: April 27-30, 2021

Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this official Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master training class, leading to and including the industry-recognized PSM I certification. The training is designed as a live virtual class of 4 hours per day from 9 to 13 o’clock CEST and will be offered in English.

🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM I Certificate: April 27-30, 2021

Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM I Certificate: April 27-30, 2021.

Customer voices: “The class with Stefan was very well structured, delivering a helpful hands-on approach to all the Scrum basics. He managed to cover participants with different levels of expertise and from various fields easily and delivered knew knowledge and value to all of them from my point of view. The culture during these four days was excellent, so that everyone felt capable to speak up. Very much worth the invested time and money!” (Link.)

👉 From time to time, we can offer last-minute seats for training classes at cost to individuals who do not have access to a corporate training budget. If you like to be notified about these opportunities, please register here.

🎯 Product

Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion: Why There’s No Single “Right” Way to Do Discovery: Part 3

Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion discuss the two first principles of continuous product discovery.

Jeff Gothelf: Selling underwear: How developers learned to love talking to customers

Jeff Gothelf shares a war story from the trenches of product discovery.

Rich Mironov: Prioritization Beyond Algorithms

Rich Mironov confronts us with the common idea that ‘prioritization’ is a trivial mechanical process run on autopilot.

📯 App Prototyping with Absolute Beginners – Creating a Shared Understanding of How Empiricism Works

Yes, even absolute beginners can prototype an app. And learn a lot about agile product management, Scrum, empiricism, product design, and user experience along the way.

If you intend to live up to Scrum and agile product development’s full potential, creating a shared understanding of how empiricism works among all co-workers in your organization is essential. This low-cost exercise of creating clickable prototypes will significantly improve your organization’s agile transformation.

App Prototyping with Absolute Beginners – Creating a Shared Understanding of How Empiricism Works — Age-of-Product.com

Learn more: App Prototyping with Absolute Beginners – Creating a Shared Understanding of How Empiricism Works.

🛠 Tools & Measuring

Barry O'Reilly: I’m Busting the Myths About Innovation Metrics

Barry O’Reilly points at the elephant in the room: companies use unsuitable metrics to track their innovation efforts.

Allan Kelly: ‘OKRs in Agile’ infographic

Allan Kelly shares Yoan Thirion’s infographic illustrating Allan’s book ‘Succeeding with OKRs in Agile.’

📅 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

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.

Hands-on Agile #31: Drive Product Innovation with the Zones of Value Framework — April 20, 2021

Join us on April 20, 2021, for a live virtual workshop on driving product innovation with the Zones of Value framework. (Participation is free.)

📺 Join 2,700-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:

Download the Remote Agile Guide for Free — Age-of-Product.com

✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about the Systems Change Problem — Join the 9,000-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

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Download the ’Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide’ for Free — Age-of-Product.com

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #286: Rethinking Bad Decisions, Scrumban Is Not a Mere Hybrid, Product Discovery Excuses, Metrics Maturity.

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