TL; DR: Building Products without Value — Food for Agile Thought #383
Welcome to the 383rd edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 37,076 peers. This week, Jeff Patton attempts to explain why organizations “irrationally and addictively” build products without value. In addition, we address a controversial topic that might help alleviate the “no real value” problem: writing good code requires more technical skills; Developers also need to talk to their customers. Also, improving Product Backlog management in Scrum might support avoiding becoming focused on merely shipping stuff.
Then, we present a “set of principles, practices, and competencies” that together represent the best tech-powered companies’ way of working, bolstered by a “list of potentially helpful questions (and multiple-choice answers) to help you explore the ideas, strategies, opportunities, problems, bets, initiatives, and projects on your roadmap.” Moreover, should you consider turning your service business into a product, you don’t want to miss a podcast with “Productize” author Eisha Armstrong.
Finally, we share experts’ insight into Spotify’s approach to learning about a Squad’s health. Speaking of team health, we also reflect on why answering Scrum’s obsolete three Daily Scrum questions negatively influences your team and share a framework to “meet conversational stuckness and tensions at the appropriate level.” Lastly, we dive into an interesting question: Is it still form follows function in the digital space?
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue 382?
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Building Products without Value
: Underpants gnomes, Outcomes, and Intermittent Reinforcement – Help Your Organization Focus on Successful Outcomes
Jeff Patton attempts to explain why organizations “irrationally and addictively build and release products that often have no real value.”
🍋 The Lemon of the Week
We are lemon-free this week!
➿ Agile & Scrum
: A Really Common Problem
Liz Keogh delves into Product Backlog management in Scrum and how to avoid becoming focused on merely shipping stuff.
: Talking to customers is not a waste of a developer's time
Jeff Gothelf addresses a controversial topic and claims that writing good code requires more technical skills: you also need to talk to your customers.
(via Spotify Engineering): Getting More from Your Team Health Checks
Justin Kotzé and Fiona Siseman explain Spotify’s approach to learning about a Squad’s health.
🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — March 23, 2023
The Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills (PSFS) training by Berlin Product People is a one-day official Scrum.org class for advanced Scrum practitioners and agile coaches, including the industry-acknowledged PSFS certification. This PSFS training class is in English.
Enjoy the benefits of an live-virtual immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 o’clock CET.
Learn more: 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — March 23, 2023.
👉 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
(via Silicon Valley Product Group): The Product Model
Marty Cagan presents a “set of principles, practices, and competencies” that together represent the best tech-powered companies’ way of working.
: (Roadmap Item) Questions
John Cutler created a “list of potentially helpful questions (and multiple-choice answers) to help you explore the ideas, strategies, opportunities, problems, bets, initiatives, and projects on your roadmap.”
and : 🎙 The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Productization
Jason Knight interviews Eisha Armstrong on what to avoid when turning your service business into a product.
📯 The Three Daily Scrum Questions Won’t Die — Making Your Scrum Work (29)
The Daily Scrum serves a single purpose: inspecting the progress toward the Sprint Goal by reflecting on yesterday’s learning. Then, if the need should arise, the Developers adapt their plan to accomplish the Sprint Goal. While the theory may be generally accepted, applying the idea to the practice is more challenging. One of the recurring issues is the continued popularity of the “three Daily Scrum questions” from the Scrum Guide 2017.
Let’s reflect on why answering these obsolete Daily Scrum questions negatively influences the Scrum team.
👉 Learn more: The Three Daily Scrum Questions Won’t Die — Making Your Scrum Work (29)
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
(via RebootHQ): I-We-It: A Framework To Have One Conversation at a Time
Allison Schultz shares a framework to “meet conversational stuckness and tensions at the appropriate level.”
(via ProdPad): Product Designer vs Product Manager: What's the Difference?
Janna Bastow dives into an interesting question: Is it still form follows function in the digital space?
: 📺 WIP, Multi-Tasking, Context Switching (Video)
John Cutler shares an 8-minute practice session on improving flow and productivity.
🎶 Encore
: Productivity and Bullshit
Dror Poleg claims that “technology creates more work. More work creates technology. But the way it does so is increasingly unclear.”
📅 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 💯 🇩🇪 May 19-20, 2026 | Guaranteed: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1,299 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
| 💯 🇬🇧 May 28 to June 25, 2026 | Guaranteed: AI4Agile BootCamp #7 (English; Live Virtual Cohort) | Live Virtual Cohort | €499 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
| 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 1, 2026 | GUARANTEED: Claude Cowork: Stop Prompting. Start Delegating. (English; Self-paced Online Course) | Self-Paced Online Course | $129 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
| 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 10-July 2, 2026 | GUARANTEED: Claude Cowork BootCamp #2 (English; Live Virtual Cohort) | Live Virtual Cohort | $249 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
| 🇩🇪 June 30-July 1, 2026 | Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1,299 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
| 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 July 1, 2026 | GUARANTEED: AI 4 Agile Course v3 — Master AI for Agile Practitioners (English; Self-paced Online Course) | Self-Paced Online Course | $149 incl. 19% VAT (If applicable.) |
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 avoiding building products without value :
- 🆕 Hands-on Agile 47: How much Product Discovery Is enough? The Confidence Meter Explained with Itamar Gilad.
- 🆕 Hands-on Agile 46: The Agile Fluency Model ® with Diana Larsen.
- Hands-on Agile 44: Honey, I Shrunk the Backlog with Allan Kelly.
- 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 38: The Product Owner with Roman Pichler.
✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about Building Products without Value — 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.
Help your team to learn about avoiding building products without value by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:
