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Food for Agile Thought #339: Product Management Anti-Patterns, Scrum-like Kanban, Fixing Your Product Roadmap, 300+ Agile and Scrum Statistics

TL; DR: Product Management Anti-Patterns, Scrum-like Kanban — Food for Agile Thought #339

Welcome to the 339th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,114 peers. This week, we explore product management anti-patterns, from the hamster wheel to the ivory tower to the throne room, and we ask ourselves: What is a high-performing agile team? Also, we detail how to incorporate tactics and practices from Scrum into a Kanban system and suggest a massive list of statistics on ‘Agile’ and Scrum to support your initiatives with data.

We then point to two different processes that comprise product management: a) core product work, creating objective value, and b) growth work, optimizing how a product delivers value to customers. Moreover, we explain how startups may benefit from continuous discovery work, although most start with an idea, not a customer segment and a value proposition, and we describe a system of connecting strategy with operational doing, dubbed the ‘roadmap pipeline.’

Lastly, we show how value stream optimization helps to improve throughput and quality in the development process. We also point to Ray Dalio’s book ‘Principles,’ where Dalio communicates his idea of how to share your disagreement in a considerate and constructive manner. Finally, Eric Migicovsky published a post-mortem from 2017 on lessons learned from the demise of Pebble.

Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue #338?

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

📅 Join 200-plus peers on May 30, 2022: HoA #42: The Skinny on Lean Roadmapping and OKRs w/ Janna Bastow.

🏆 The Tip of the Week: Product Management Anti-Patterns

Ben Foster (via Mind The Product): 📺 Product management dysfunctions

Ben Foster explores product management anti-patterns, from the hamster wheel to the ivory tower to the throne room.

➿ Agile & Scrum

Mike Cohn: What Is a High-Performing Agile Team?

In Mike Cohn’s world, a ‘high-performing team sustainably exceeds expectations in achieving clear goals.’ Learn more about how your Scrum team can progress to that level of proficiency.

Boris Karl Schlein (via Medium): A Scrum-like Multi-level Kanban Implementation

Boris Karl Schlein details how to incorporate tactics and practices from Scrum into a Kanban system.

(via Parabol Focus): 300+ Agile and Scrum Statistics for 2022

Parabol aggregated a massive list of statistics on ‘Agile’ and Scrum to support your initiatives with data.

🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training w/ PSPO Certificate — Online: May 9-10, 2022

Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this official Scrum.org Professional Scrum Product Owner training class, leading to and including the industry-recognized PSPO I certification. The training is designed as a live virtual class and will be offered in English.

Enjoy the benefits of an compact class of two sessions with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 o’clock CEST.

Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training w/ PSPO Certificate — Online: May 9-10, 2022.

Customer review: “Great experience! The class was highly interactive but also paced to adapt to the participants. We learnt by doing and had a lot of fun in the process!” (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

Oleg Yakubenkov: Two types of product work: creating value and delivering value

Oleg Yakubenkov points at two different processes that comprise product management: a) core product work, creating objective value, and b) growth work, optimizing how a product delivers value to customers.

Teresa Torres: How Continuous Discovery Works (and Doesn’t) in Early-Stage Startups

Teresa Torres explains how startups may benefit from continuous discovery work, although most start with an idea, not a customer segment and a value proposition.

(via Medium): The Playbook to fix your Product Roadmap

Markus Müller describes his system of connecting strategy with operational doing, dubbed the ‘roadmap pipeline.’

📯 Scrum Master Anti-Patterns — 20 Signs Your Scrum Master Needs Help

The reasons Scrum Masters violate the spirit of the Scrum Guide are multi-faceted. Typical Scrum Master anti-patterns run from ill-suited personal traits to complacency to pursuing individual agendas to frustration with the team itself.

Read on and learn in this post on Scrum anti-patterns how you can identify if your Scrum Master needs support from the team.

👉 Learn more: 20 Scrum Master Anti-Patterns.

🛠 Tools & Measuring

(via InfoQ): Dynamic Value Stream Mapping to Help Increase Developer Productivity

Pavel Azaletskiy shows how value stream optimization helps to improve throughput and quality in the development process.

Marc Abraham: My Product Management Toolkit (51): Thoughtful Disagreement

Marc Abraham points to Ray Dalio’s book ‘Principles,’ where Dalio communicates his idea of how to share your disagreement in a considerate and constructive manner.

✂️ Cutting Room Floor

Eric Migicovsky (via Medium): Success and Failure at Pebble

Eric Migicovsky finally published a post-mortem from 2017 on lessons learned from the demise of Pebble.

📅 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
🖥 🇩🇪 January 28-31, 2025 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; 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
🖥 🇬🇧 February 12-13, 2025 Professional Scrum Master Advanced Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 February 27, 2025 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class (PSFS; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 March 6-April3, 2025 GUARANTEED: Align, Discover, Deliver: The Product Backlog Management Cohort Class (English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Cohort €499 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇩🇪 March 11-12, 2025 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇬🇧 March 26-27, 2025 Professional Scrum Master Advanced Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇩🇪 April 10, 2025 Professional Product Discovery and Validation Class (PPDV; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 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 3,750-plus Agile Peers on Youtube

Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning:

✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about Product Management Anti-Patterns — Join the 11,000-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 #338: The Taste of Salt & Agile Coaching, Visual Planning w/ Jeff & Gojko, Dunbar’s Number, Escaping the Planning Illusion.

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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