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Food for Agile Thought #305: Coaching Executive Mindsets, Accountability vs. Responsibility, Why Finding Insights Is So Painful, Big Project Syndrome

TL; DR: Coaching Executive Mindsets, Big Project Syndrome — Food for Agile Thought #305

Welcome to the 305th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 32,803 peers. This week, we delve into coaching executive mindsets; we are getting into the zone with the Agile Fluency Model, and we reflect on the difference between accountability and responsibility and how to avoid confusing them.

We then come back to a familiar and highly destructive leadership pattern: turning big ideas into similar-sized projects. Moreover, we point at common analytics problems and how product teams can measure success more effectively, and we mention that output metrics are an obsolete and counterproductive way of measuring human impact in a world of knowledge.

Lastly, we delve into practical aspects of reinventing organizations, from resilience to socio-technical systems to the power of visualization.

Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue #304?

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

📅 Join us on September 7, 2021: Hands-on Agile #34: Core Protocols for Psychological Safety with Richard Kasperowski.

🏆 The Tip of the Week

Daniel Stillman and Jeff Gothelf: 🎙 Coaching Executive Mindsets

Daniel Stillman interviews ‘Lean UX’ co-author Jeff Gothelf on his path and some of the ‘most powerful questions he asks leaders to shift their mindsets and thinking.’

➿ Agile & Scrum

James Shore (via Cambermast): 🎙 Getting in the agile zone with the fluency model

Bill Raymond interviews James Shore on the Agile Fluency Model, which helps better understand the cultural change in organizations that aspire to become agile.

Michael Sahota: Accountability vs Responsibility: What’s the Difference?

Michael Sahota reflects on the difference between these two concepts and how to avoid confusing them.

(via Intercom): Shipping fast and safe: Building a culture of low-risk learning

Kesha Mykhailov shares tips on how to enable product engineers to learn from the production environment safely.

🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 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.)

👉 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

Itamar Gilad: The Big Project Syndrome

Itamar Gilad delves into a familiar and highly destructive leadership pattern: turning big ideas into similar-sized projects.

Rich Mironov and Rachel Obstler (via Heap): 🎙 Product Therapy: Why Finding Insights Is So Painful (and What You Can Do About)

In this podcast, Rich Mironov points at common analytics pain points and how product teams can measure success more effectively.

(via Commonplace - The Commoncog Blog): John Cutler’s Product Org Expertise

Cedric Chin applies ACTA — “applied cognitive task analysis” — to analyze John Cutler’s super-power: figuring out system dynamics of an organization by talking to a few people.

📅 Hands-on Agile #34, Sept 7, 2021: Core Protocols for Psychological Safety — Richard Kasperowski

Join Richard Kasperowski and your peers at the 34th Hands-on Agile Meetup on September 7, 2021: “High-Performance Teams: Core Protocols for Psychological Safety and Emotional Intelligence.”

🎟 RSVP now on Meetup.com — Seats are limited!

🛠 Tools & Measuring

Dominic Price (via Atlassian): The problem with productivity metrics

Dominic Price states that output metrics are an obsolete and counterproductive way of measuring human impact in a world of knowledge.

Tiani Jones and Jurriaan Kamer (via YouTube): 📺 Reinventing Organizations: OS Canvas 2.0

In this video, Tiani Jones and Jurriaan Kamer delve into practical aspects of reinventing organizations, from socio-technical systems to the power of visualization.

📅 Scrum Training Classes, Workshops, and Events

Date Class and Language City Price
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 April 20-21, 2022 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1.189 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 April 25-26, 2022 GUARANTEED: Professional Agile Leadership Essentials Training (PAL I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1.189 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 9-10, 2022 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1.189 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 May 17-20, 2022 Advanced Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO-A; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1.399 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 30, 2022 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile 42: The Skinny on Lean Roadmapping and OKRs with Janna Bastow (English; Live Virtual Meetup) Live Virtual Meetup FREE
🖥 🇬🇧 May 31-June 1, 2022 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1.189 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇩🇪 June 7-10, 2022 Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1.189 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇬🇧 June 20-23, 2022 Professional Scrum Master Training (PSM I; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1.189 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇩🇪 June 28-July 1, 2022 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1.189 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.

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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 #304: 147 Logical Fallacies, Agile 2.0, Focusing on Evidence (Not Opinions), INVEST Delivers If….

Categories: News
Stefan Wolpers: Stefan—based in Berlin, Germany—has been working for 17-plus years as an agile coach, Scrum Master, and Product Owner. He is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) with Scrum.org and the author of Pearson’s upcoming “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 Agile Camp Berlin, a Barcamp for coaches and other agile practitioners.
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