Food for Agile Thought #386: Scrum Police, Marty Cagan on Transformations, Agile Bureaucracy, Trust In Product Management?

TL; DR: Scrum Police, Marty Cagan on Transformations — Food for Agile Thought #386

Welcome to the 386th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 45,734 peers. This week, we applaud Mike Cohn and his fantastic squad from the Scrum Police for battling the countless misadventures of wonky Scrum implementations. Also, Jurriaan Kamer explores six options to “revitalize your agile transformation” while we reflect on the “relationship between organization and self-organization,” as systems self-organize within constraints. Moreover, Shane Snow claims, “despite our natural propensity to trust, a lack of trust is the #1 underlying cause of dysfunction in teams,” and Jason Cohen dives into humanity’s repeated pattern of inability to predict the future and what techniques we have to navigate our volatile world.

Then, Marty Cagan shares his thoughts on common transformation pitfalls, from outsourcing the transformation to McBoston to the widespread desire for a process, and Tim Herbig suggests addressing the analysis-paralysis problem product teams face during product discovery. Additionally, Dave Gray shares several free innovation-related illustrations, from the corporate innovation ecosystem to measuring innovation to plugging into the startup ecosystem.

Finally, we appreciate that Corinna Baldauf turned all 144 Retromat exercises into a giant Miro template and enjoy Nick Brown’s excellent primer on the many problems, issues, and flaws of a favorite concept of many organizations: flow efficiency. Russ Roberts interviews Kevin Kelly about his book ‘Excellent Advice for Living,’ and why Kevin Kelly is not worried about AI, and we close with David Rotman’s belief that LLMs would inevitably cause a revolution by transforming many jobs. Whether that will be beneficial to society is up to us to decide.

Food for Agile Thought #386: Scrum Police, Marty Cagan on Transformations, Agile Bureaucracy, Trust In Product Management? — Age-of-Product.com

📈 Please join the anonymous survey: What Anti-Patterns have you observed that make Jira unbearable?

Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue 385?

🗞 Shall I notify you about articles like this one? Awesome! You can sign up here for the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and join 45,000-plus subscribers.

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

📖 Get notified when the Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide book is available!

Hands-on Agile #50: The Product Community of Practice w/ Petra Wille

Join your peers on April 5, 2023: Hands-on Agile #50: The Product Community of Practice w/ Petra Wille.

🏆 The Tip of the Week

Mike Cohn: 📺 Scrum Police

Hats off to Mike Cohn and his fantastic squad for battling the countless misadventures of wonky Scrum implementations!

For years, the Scrum Police existed in the shadows, defending the purity of Scrum implementations. As crimes against Scrumanity have increased, we are going public with our efforts.

On our new, official site you can report crimes, view a log of recent convictions, and even confess your own crimes before you are turned in by your teammates.

🍋 The Lemon of the Week

Reid Manchester (via Mind The Product): Trust? In product management?

Reid Manchester reflects on trust and risk in product management, claiming that building healthy, successful products requires product people to work in a state of low trust.

➿ Agile & Scrum

Jurriaan Kamer (via Medium): Don’t Get Stuck in Agile Bureaucracy

Jurriaan Kamer explores six options to “revitalize your agile transformation,” from examining beliefs about people in the workplace, reviewing your current framework and practices to using experimentation to evolve the organization continuously.

Chris Corrigan: Holding space for self-organization

Chris Corrigan reflects on the “relationship between organization and self-organization,” as systems self-organize within constraints.

Jason Cohen (via Jason Cohen): Navigating the unpredictability of everything

Jason Cohen dives into humanity’s repeated pattern of inability to predict the future and what techniques we have to navigate our volatile world.

Shane Snow: The Counter-Intuitive Truth About Trust In Teamwork

Shane Snow claims, “despite our natural propensity to trust, a lack of trust is the #1 underlying cause of dysfunction in teams.”

🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — May 16, 2023

The Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills (PSFS) training by Berlin Product People is a guaranteed 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.

Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — May 16, 2023 — Berlin-Product-People.com

Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — May 16, 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

Marty Cagan (via Mind The Product): 📺 Common transformation pitfalls

In this extensive video, Marty Cagan shares his thoughts on common transformation pitfalls, from outsourcing the transformation to McBoston to the widespread desire for a process.

Tim Herbig: From Information to Evidence: How Context Informs Product Discovery Decisions

Tim Herbig suggests addressing the analysis-paralysis problem product teams face during product discovery.

Dave Gray: Innovation illustrated

Dave Gray shares several free innovation-related illustrations, from the corporate innovation ecosystem to measuring innovation to plugging into the startup ecosystem.

📯 Creating a Personal Readme for Scrum Masters with ChatGPT

Providing a personal readme to your new teammates and stakeholders as a Scrum Master is a great way to build trust and rapport while managing expectations at the same time. I do so regularly and having a template for that purpose comes in handy.

Therefore, I thought it also might be an excellent exercise to test ChatGPT on more practical aspects of a Scrum Master’s work. So please follow the complete path to having ChatGPT create a decent personal readme template for Scrum Masters—which took me less than 20 minutes.

Creating a Personal Readme for Scrum Masters with ChatGPT — Age-of-Product.com

👉 Learn more: Creating a Personal Readme for Scrum Masters with ChatGPT

🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring

Corinna Baldauf: Retromat Miroboard Mega Template – All About Retrospectives

Corinna Baldauf turned all 144 Retromat exercises into a giant Miro template.

Nick Brown (via Medium): The many flaws of flow efficiency

Nick Brown shares an excellent primer on the many problems, issues, and flaws of a favorite concept of many organizations.

🎶 Encore

Russ Roberts and Kevin Kelly (via Econlib): 🎙 Kevin Kelly on Advice, AI, and Technology

Russ Roberts interviews Kevin Kelly about his book ‘Excellent Advice for Living,’ and why Kevin Kelly is not worried about AI.

(via MIT Technology Review): ChatGPT is about to revolutionize the economy. We need to decide what that looks like.

David Rotman believes that LLMs will inevitably cause a revolution by transforming many jobs. Whether that is beneficial to society is up to us to decide.


📅 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
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 2-30, 2024 GUARANTEED: Product Backlog Management Cohort Class (English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €499 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 9, 2024 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile #60: A Q&A on Dynamic Reteaming with Heidi Helfand (English) Live Virtual Meetup FREE
🖥 💯 🇩🇪 April 10-11, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 April 23-24, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Master (Advanced) Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 7, 2024 GUARANTEED: Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Training (PSFS; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €749 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 May 7, 2024 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile #61: Toyota Kata Coaching for Agile Teams & Transformations with Fortune Buchholtz (English) Live Virtual Meetup FREE
🖥 🇩🇪 May 14-15, 2024 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 🇬🇧 May 28-29, 2024 Professional Scrum Master (Advanced) Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,189 incl. 19% VAT
🖥 💯 🇬🇧 June 6, 2024 GUARANTEED: Hands-on Agile #62: From Backlog Manager to Product Manager: From Outputs to Outcomes w/ David Pereira (English) Live Virtual Meetup FREE
🖥 🇩🇪 June 25-26, 2024 Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) Live Virtual Class €1,299 incl. 19% VAT

See all upcoming classes here.

Professional Scrum Trainer Stefan Wolpers

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 :

Download the Remote Agile Guide for Free — Age-of-Product.com

✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about Scrum Police — 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.

Large scale agile: Join the Hands-on Agile Slack Group

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 the Scrum Police by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:

Download the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide by PST Stefan Wolpers — 160 ways to improve as a Scrum Team — Age-of-Product.com

🗞️ Last Week’s Food for Agile Thought Edition

Read more: Food for Agile Thought #385: ChatGPT in Product Development, Organizational Change Patterns, The Art of the User Story, Do We Need Sprint Goals?

Find this content useful? Share it with your friends!

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.