TL; DR: Decision-Making 2.0, Diamond of Participation — Food for Agile Thought #356
Welcome to the 356th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 35,752 peers. This week, we will learn from psychologist Gary Klein how to improve decision-making, particularly as a team, from the benefits of pre-mortems and anonymous voting to the perils of consensus. Also, we detail Tesla’s approach to agility; we explain Sam Kaner et al.’s Diamond of Participation graphic for facilitators, and we encourage you to participate in the survey for the 16th State of Agile report.
Then, we delve into empathy as the superpower of successful product people, enabling the understanding of seemingly tricky stakeholders. Moreover, we suggest to stop “using ‘product market fit’ and instead focus on delivering value to your first ten customers,” and we applaud John Cutler for sharing the template & activity library for the North Star Framework. Following up on the interview with Gary Klein, we also suggest starting your product discovery journey with a pre-mortem: Imagine it is six months later and your product went south; what caused its failure?
Finally, we analyze commonalities and differences in product teams of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google, only to return to a classic session from 2012: Marty Cagan shares lessons learned on building products that customers love.
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue 355?
🗞 Shall I notify you about articles like this one? Awesome! You can sign up here for the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and join 35,000-plus subscribers.
🎓 Join Stefan in one of his upcoming Professional Scrum training classes!
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — September 6-9, 2022.
📈 🔬 Join 470-plus peers and contribute to the anonymous poll for the upcoming Free ‘Product Owner and Product Manager Salary Report 2022!’
🏆 The Tip of the Week: Decision-Making 2.0
and (via Farnam Street): 🎙 Insights For Making Better Decisions #144
Shane Parrish interviews psychologist Gary Klein on how to improve decision-making, particularly as a team. They cover many issues, from the benefits of pre-mortems and anonymous voting to the perils of consensus.
➿ Agile & Scrum
: Tesla Agile Success
Arnaud Viguié and Joe Justice detail Tesla’s approach to agility.
: The Diamond of Participation
Chris Corrigan explains Sam Kaner et al.’s Diamond of Participation graphic to help you facilitate and improve your teams’ ways of decision making.
(via Digital.ai): 📈 16th State of Agile: Survey Closes on August 26th 2022
Hurry up; the survey for the 16th State of Agile report is still available for another few days.
🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — September 6-9, 2022
Discover Scrum’s four success principles in this 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 and will be offered in English.
Enjoy the benefits of an immersive class of four sessions with like-minded agile peers in the morning hours from 09:00 – 13:00 o’clock CEST.
Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇩🇪 Advanced Professional Scrum Master Online Training w/ PSM II Certificate — September 6-9, 2022.
“Very hands-on class with lots of concrete takeaways to help in real world scenarios. Reinforced practices and highlighted things that helped in passing the PSM II exam but that was merely a bonus as the content of the class is so useful – certifications or not. Stefan Wolpers is an excellent trainer with broad practical and theoretical knowledge on the subject and his classes seem to have very good working atmosphere (this was a second class by him that I have taken).”(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
: Empathy in Product Management
Roman Pichler delves into empathy as the superpower of successful product people, enabling the understanding of seemingly tricky stakeholders.
: The Problem with Product Market Fit (and What to Use Instead)
Daniel Elizalde suggests to stop “using ‘product market fit’ and instead focus on delivering value to your first ten customers.”
: 📺 Customers are more forgiving about roadmaps than sales teams
In this podcast, Rich Mironov covers a broad spectrum of product roadmap-relates topics, from purpose to perspectives to product strategy.
📯 Jeff Gothelf: Outcome-Based Product Planning — Hands-on Agile 43
In this energizing 43rd Hands-on Agile session on outcome-based product planning, Jeff Gothelf clarified one thing: “Roadmapping is a flawed concept in the age of Agile. Maps, by their definition, are linear, and we don’t build linear products and services anymore. We build continuous systems.” Learn more about what he considers product roadmap flaws and what you can do about them.
📺 Watch the video now: Jeff Gothelf: Outcome-Based Product Planning — Hands-on Agile 43.
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
(via Amplitude): North Star Framework Template & Activity Library
John Cutler shares the template & activity library for the North Star Framework.
(via Crisp): This might just be the highest leverage Product Discovery activity that your team can do
Marcus Castenfors suggest starting your product discovery journey with a pre-mortem: Imagine it is six months later and your product went south; what caused its failure?
🎶 Encore
: Should We Work Like FAANG?
Itamar Gilad analyses commonalities and differences in product teams of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.
(via Mind The Product): 📺 Learnings from London: Marty Cagan on making products customers love
In this classic from 2012, Marty Cagan shares lessons learned on building products that customers love.
📅 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:
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 4,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning, for example, about novelty uncertainty:
- 🆕 Hands-on Agile 43: Outcome-Based Product Planning with Jeff Gothelf.
- 🆕 Hands-on Agile 42: Lean Roadmapping and OKRs with Janna Bastow.
- 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.
- Hands-on Agile 31: The Zones of Value Framework with Valerio Zanini & Zeina Zeitouni.
- Hands-on Agile 35: Designing Powerful Questions to help you Coach & Create with Daniel Stillman.
- Hands-on Agile 34: Core Protocols for Psychological Safety with Richard Kasperowski.
✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about Decision-Making 2.0 — Join the 12,000-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.
