TL; DR: Culture & Methods Trends 2023 — Food for Agile Thought #387
Welcome to the 387th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 45,893 peers. This week, Shane Hastie introduces the Culture & Methods Trends 2023 report, from culture handbooks to LLM-supported development to scaling frameworks entering the Late Majority. Moreover, we learn from an interview with Brendan Marsh about Spotify and its way of working, the obvious question being: Is there a ‘Spotify Model?’ Also, we list three critical issues leading to less effective Retrospectives, from inconsistency to a lack of contributions to failure to follow up on action items, and point out that SAFe may not be ideal, but applying it may lead to a higher level of business agility, depending on the environment and context.
Then, Maret Kruve remembers her challenges when starting as a product manager, being an introvert, and how she coped with them. Also, we learn suggestions for encouraging engineers to involve themselves more effectively in the ideation process. In a shocking revelation, Michalina Bidzinska explains why “listening to users is less important than observing their actions,” as they all lie to us.
Finally, we reflect on issues and challenges when using NPS beyond its intended purpose as a consumer research tool and ask ChatGPT to help us with OKR design. Speaking of metrics, Tendayi Viki dissects the idea of return on investment for innovation, distinguishing two realms: the “innovation team lives in Explore, whereas the executive board lives in Exploit.” Lastly, we explore how Chinese companies “prioritize autonomy at scale, internal digital platforms, and a clear project focus.”
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🏆 The Tip of the Week
(via InfoQ): 📈 Culture & Methods Trends Report March 2023
Shane Hastie introduces the latest trends in engineering, from culture handbooks to LLM-supported development to scaling frameworks entering the Late Majority.
🍋 The Lemon of the Week
(via UX Collective): Scrum is just as bad as SAFe – adopt it at your own risk
In another round of Scrum bashing, Henrik Ståhl claims that “Scrum is just as bad as SAFe. Adopt it at your own risk,” without adding much insight to the discussion than unsubstantiated claims.
➿ Agile & Scrum
: 🎙 What really happened at Spotify
In this podcast, Murray Robinson and Shane Gibson interview Brendan Marsh about his time at Spotify and its way of working.
(via Agile Alliance): Why your retros don't work and how to fix them
Enrico Teotti lists three critical issues leading to less effective Retrospectives, from inconsistency to a lack of contributions to failure to follow up on action items.
(via Leading Agile): 📺 On Managing Expectations of Methodologies & Frameworks
Mike Cottmeyer delves into SAFe’s shortcomings; however, he also points out that applying SAFe may lead to a higher level of business agility, depending on the environment and context.
🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 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.
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Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — May 16, 2023.
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🎯 Product
(via Medium): How I Survived the Lifestyle of a Product Manager as an Introvert
Maret Kruve remembers her challenges when starting as a product manager, being an introvert, and how she coped with them.
: Product in Practice: Getting Engineers Involved in Brainstorming
Ellen Juhlin asked Teresa Torres’ community for suggestions on encouraging engineers to involve themselves more effectively in the ideation process.
(via uxdesign.cc): Everybody Lies. Your Users Too.
Michalina Bidzinska explains why “listening to users is less important than observing their actions.”
📯 Workshop Design with ChatGPT
The following article explores whether we can use ChatGPT-4 to create workshops for agile practitioners; for example, Scrum Masters. While Liberating Structures have simplified the task, workshop design with ChatGPT may provide an alternative.
As you will learn, and despite being prone to lapse into project management speak, ChatGPT is remarkably capable of doing so, provided we feed it suitable prompts. Whether this requirement gives ChatGPT an edge over manually creating workshops remains to be seen.
👉 Learn more: Workshop Design with ChatGPT.
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
(via Mind The Product): The 9 ugliest truths about NPS in B2B
Paula Stürmer reflects on issues and challenges when using NPS beyond its intended purpose as a consumer research tool.
: I asked ChatGPT to write your OKRs
Tim Herbig shows “the impact that context through strategy can have on OKR design using a mechanical sparring partner.”
🎶 Encore
(via Strategyzer): ROI for innovation
Tendayi Viki dissects the idea of return on investment for innovation, distinguishing two realms: the “innovation team lives in Explore, whereas the executive board lives in Exploit.”
(via Harvard Business Review): How Chinese Companies Are Reinventing Management
Mark J. Greeven, Katherine Xin, and George S. Yip explore how Chinese companies “prioritize autonomy at scale, internal digital platforms, and a clear project focus.”
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📺 Join 4,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning, for example, about the Culture & Methods Trends 2023:
- 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 the Culture & Methods Trends 2023 — Join the 12,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community
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Help your team to learn about the Culture & Methods Trends 2023 by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide: