TL; DR: Product Waste, Little’s Law & Forecasts — Food for Agile Thought #344
Welcome to the 344th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,342 peers. This week, we delve into the patterns of product waste resulting from an ‘organizational and conceptual gap’ between product and engineering teams on the one side and sales and marketing teams on the other side. Also, we outline how to support your teams emotionally in challenging times, and we visualize the mental model of developers as systems thinkers, from inner and outer loops to flow states to context switching. Moreover, we reflect on those who ‘dodge gatekeepers and dance around policies, doing whatever it takes to get the job done.’
Then, we provide insight into Stripe’s product strategy, resulting in a ‘microcosm of product-led, developer-centric growth.’ Moreover, we guide the reader from JTBD to user-centered design to the CCVC framework, and we listen to Chad McAllister interviewing Mike Mace on how to get customer insights quickly to counter demands from your resident HiPPO or a pushy sales team.
Also, we show how the application of Little’s Law can support your team’s forecast quality, and, finally, we address the widespread belief that Kanban is nothing more than some columns on a board and a handful of cards to push around, resulting in highly complex boards of little value.
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue #343?
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🏆 The Tip of the Week
: Product Waste and The ROI of Discovery
Rich Mironov delves into the patterns of product waste resulting from an ‘organizational and conceptual gap’ between product and engineering teams on the one side and sales and marketing teams on the other side.
➿ Agile & Scrum
(via First Round Capital): A Manager’s Guide to Helping Teams Face Down Uncertainty, Burnout and Perfectionism
In this interview, author Liz Fosslien outlines how to support your teams emotionally in challenging times.
(via Sourcegraph): A dev's thoughts on developer productivity
Using pictures and diagrams, Beyang Liu visualizes the mental model of developers as systems thinkers, from inner and outer loops to flow states to context switching.
: Dangerous Professionals: Hacking the Bureaucracy to Get Stuff Done
Zain Rizvi reflects on those who ‘dodge gatekeepers and dance around policies, doing whatever it takes to get the job done.’
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🎯 Product
: Stripe's model of product-led, developer-centric growth
Will Larson provides insight into Stripe’s product strategy, resulting in a ‘microcosm of product-led, developer-centric growth.’
(via Medium): Customer-Centric Value Creation
Wolfram Nagel guides the reader from JTBD to user-centered design to the CCVC framework.
: 🎙 Fast user insights for product managers and innovators – with Mike Mace
In this podcast, Chad McAllister interviews Mike Mace on how to get customer insights quickly to counter demands from your resident HiPPO or a pushy sales team.
📯 15 Sprint Review Anti-Patterns Holding Back Scrum Teams
Are we still on track to accomplish the Product Goal? Moreover, how did the previous Sprint contribute to our Scrum team’s mission? Answering these questions and adapting the Product Backlog in a collaborative effort of the Scrum Team with internal and external stakeholders is the purpose of the Sprint Review. Given its importance, it is worthwhile to tackle the most common Sprint Review anti-patterns.
👉 Learn more: 15 Sprint Review Anti-Patterns Holding Back Scrum Teams.
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
: Little's Law for Any Kind of Product Development: How to Learn How Long Your Work Will Take
Johanna Rothman shows how the application of Little’s Law can support your team’s forecast quality.
(via Kanbanize Blog): Using 5S to Keep your Kanban Board Organized in Practice
Robert S. Falkowitz addresses the widespread belief that Kanban is nothing more than some columns on a board and a handful of cards to push around, resulting in highly complex boards of little value.
✂️ Cutting Room Floor
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📺 Join 3,800-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning:
- 🆕 Hands-on Agile #40: The Best Team Ever with David Burkus.
- 🆕 Hands-on Agile #38: The Product Owner with Roman Pichler.
- Agile Camp Berlin 2021: The Power and Pains of Autonomy with Jimmy Janlén.
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