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Food for Agile Thought #289: FAST Agile, OKRs’ Dark Side, PM Competency Framework, Breaking into Product Management

TL; DR: FAST Agile, OKRs’ Dark Side—Food for Agile Thought #289

Welcome to the 289th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 31,016 peers. This week, we delve into FAST Agile to fill the gap for a purely complex agile method. We examine the Boeing 737 Max crashes through the lens of industry and corporate culture, and we point at OKRs’ dark side—their dual-use nature and the inherent prospective misuse potential in the hands of traditional performance management protagonists.

We then share the open-source template of the ‘Product Management Competency Framework;’ we explore the topic of design justice, and we enjoy a teacher’s story of breaking into product management without a CS degree.

Lastly, we point at the pre-requisits of shifting from a traditional management style to genuinely remote leadership, from remote-first to avoiding the rookie mistake of applying controlling tools.

Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue #288?

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🎓 Join Stefan in one of his upcoming Professional Scrum training classes!

Join more than 150 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

Ron Quartel (via Medium): There’s a New Kid on the Agile Block — FAST Agile

Ron Quartel shares his ‘Fluid Scaling Technology (FAST Agile)’ framework to fill the gap for a purely complex agile method. (If you’re not a Medium subscriber, consider using a private browser window to open the URL.)

➿ Agile & Scrum

Bill George (via Harvard Business Review): What Went Wrong with the Boeing 737 Max?

Harvard Business School professor Bill George examines the Boeing 737 Max crashes through the lens of industry and corporate culture.

Molood Ceccarelli (via InfoQ): Moving from Collocated Management to Remote Leadership

Molood Ceccarelli points at the pre-requisits of shifting from a traditional management style to genuinely remote leadership, from remote-first to avoiding the rookie mistake of applying controlling tools.

Anthony Sciamanna (via Industrial Logic): Collective Code Ownership and Conway's Law

Anthony Sciamanna details how collective code ownership can bear fruit in enterprises and multi-team software organizations.

🎓 🖥 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Master Schulung mit PSM I-Zertifikat: 11. und 12. Mai 2021

Entdecken Sie die vier Erfolgsprinzipien von Scrum mit dieser offiziellen Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master-Schulung, die zur branchenweit anerkannten PSM I-Zertifizierung führt und diese beinhaltet. Die Unterrichtssprache ist Deutsch und die Schulung ist als virtuelles Live-Training (8 Stunden/Tag) konzipiert.

Erfahren Sie mehr: 🖥 🇩🇪 Professional Scrum Master Schulung mit PSM I-Zertifkat: 11. und 12. Mai 2021.

Kundenstimmen: “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

Brendan Marsh (via Mind The Product): Making Product Management growth a team effort

Brendan Marsh shares the open-source template of the ‘Product Management Competency Framework,’ supporting individual and team conversations about your growth as a Product Manager.

Teresa Torres: 📺 Rethinking Product Discovery with Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Mind

Teresa Torres shares her talk at IndustryConf, exploring the topic of design justice.

Jenny Wolochow (via ProductCraft): You don’t need a technical background to be a PM. I’m proof.

Jenny Wolochow shares her story of breaking into product management as a teacher, as you can develop the skills necessary to become a PM in other ways than by obtaining a CS degree.

📯 Product Owner Interview Questions — The Product Backlog and Refinement

Please find the following 19 of 71 Product Owner interview questions to identify suitable candidates for the role of Product Owner, addressing the Product Backlog, Product Backlog refinement, work items, forecasts, and estimates.

Learn more: Product Owner Interview Questions — The Product Backlog and Refinement.

🛠 Tools & Measuring

Antoinette Weibel (via Corporate Rebels): The Dark Side Of OKRs (And Why We Should Care)

Antoinette Weibel names a significant challenge of OKRs: its dual-use nature and the inherent prospective misuse potential in the hands of traditional performance management protagonists.

Steve Blank (via Medium): A Path to the Minimum Viable Product

Steve Blank shares a guest post of Shawn Carolan, introducing the MVP Tree to break down your mission into more manageable chunks based on the author’s experience in coaching hundreds of startups.

📅 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 21, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class (PSFS; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 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
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Feburary 4-6, 2025 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile 2025: From Concept-Based to Context-Based Agility (English) Live Virtual Conference FREE
🖥 🇩🇪 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.

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 2,700-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

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✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about FAST Agile — 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.

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 #288: Product-Led Is Also Bad, Improving Code Reviews, 4 Questions From CTO to CPO, Rapid Design Thinking.

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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