TL; DR: Knowledge Work & Cottage Industry, Pre-Mortems — Food for Agile Thought #301
Welcome to the 301st edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 32,359 peers. This week, we reflect on knowledge work, Taylorism, management & trust, and the future of working from home. Also, we tell the story of an empowered Agile product group of three Scrum teams working as contractors for the U.S. federal government, and we learn that digital marketing agencies can succeed in applying Scrum in a non-software environment.
We then talk about becoming the best product manager you can be; we combine Agile, Lean, and Design Thinking in a novel way, and we learn how to apply pre-mortems to avoid ship-wrecking major product launches. (There is a template for running the session, too.)
Lastly, we enjoy John Cutler and Shreyas Doshi delving into the dos and don’ts of a product manager’s career growth, creative intelligence, and product leadership.
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue #300?
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📅 Join us on August 10, 2021: Hands-on Agile #33: Adapt How You Lead for Agile Success—Johanna Rothman.
🏆 The Tip of the Week
and (via Amplitude): Product Lessons Learned: A Conversation with Shreyas Doshi & John Cutler
In this podcast, John Cutler and Shreyas Doshi delve into the dos and don’ts of product manager career growth, creative intelligence, and product leadership.
➿ Agile & Scrum
: A return to cottage work
Seth Godin reflects on knowledge work, Taylorism, management & trust, and the future of working from home.
(via Agile Alliance): No Estimates at Scale in the US Federal Government
Adam Parker tells the story of an empowered Agile product group of three Scrum teams working as contractors for the U.S. federal government.
(via Agile Alliance): Scrum for Digital Marketing—Control the Chaos and Deliver Value
Clay Darrohn and Matthew Hodgson share the story of the digital marketing agency fishbat, succeeding in applying Scrum in a non-software environment.
🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — August 24-27, 2021
Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this guaranteed official Scrum.org Advanced Scrum Master training class including the industry-recognized PSM II certification. The PSM II training class is designed as a live virtual class of four sessions from 9 am to 1 pm CEST and will be offered in English.
Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — August 24-27, 2021.
Customer voices: “Fantastic course with Stefan – I specifically chose to join the class that he was facilitating as I was familiar with him from the Age of Product and have enjoyed and learned from lots of his articles. He didn’t disappoint. Hugely knowledgeable and the delivery of the various elements of learning via Mural & Liberating Structures was inspiring and shall be plagiarised! A thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking learning experience for which I must thank him and the other attendees.” (Link.)
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🎯 Product
and (via Produx Labs): Marty Cagan and Melissa Perri talk about becoming the best product manager you can be.
(via UX Collective): Combining Agile, Lean, and Design Thinking — a layered approach
Raj Nagappan suggests a novel way to “combine [the frameworks’] strengths in a concurrent and intertwined fashion.”
(via IDEO U): 11 Products & Services Made Using Design Thinking
IDEO U lists some of their favorite examples of products and services created using Design Thinking.
📖 51 Scrum Master Interview Questions (5): Scrum Success Principles and Indicators
If you are looking to fill a position for a Scrum Master (or agile coach) in your organization, you may find the following 51 interview questions useful to identify the right candidate. They are derived from my fourteen years of practical experience with XP as well as Scrum, serving both as Product Owner and Scrum Master as well as interviewing dozens of Scrum Master candidates on behalf of my clients.
This article covers the ninth set of questions on Scrum success principles and their accountability/role level indicators.
So far, this Scrum Master interview guide has been downloaded more than 21,000 times.
Learn more: 51 Scrum Master Interview Questions (5): Scrum Success Principles and Indicators.
🛠 Tools & Measuring
(via Coda.io): Pre-mortems: How a Stripe Product Manager predicts & prevents problems before launch
Shreyas Doshi explains how his team uses pre-mortems to avoid ship-wrecking major product launches and shares a template for running the session.
(via IT Revolution Press): OKRs & DevOps: From Micromanagement Misery to Finding Flow
Mik Kersten shares lessons learned from applying OKRs in large, complex organizations.
📅 Scrum Training Classes, Workshops, and Events
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 3,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel:
- 🆕 Agile Camp Berlin 2021: Linking Strategy to Everyday Work with John Cutler.
- 🆕 Agile Camp Berlin 2021: Sustainable Agility at the Enterprise Level with Jorgen Hesselberg.
- Agile Camp Berlin 2021: How to Win with Agile Resistant Teams - A Case Study with Scott Weiner.
- Agile Camp Berlin 2021: Increasing the Velocity of Value with Dave West.
- Agile Camp Berlin 2021: Evidence-based Interventions with Viktor Cessan.
- Agile Camp Berlin 2021: Real Cross-functional Teams for Creating real and better Products with Jutta Eckstein and Maryse Meinen.
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