TL; DR: Continuous Integration — Food for Agile Thought #426
Welcome to the 426th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 49,156 peers. This week, we explore Martin Fowler’s essay, advocating for Continuous Integration for team efficiency, while Martijn Oost critiques quick Agile transformations, emphasizing a tailored approach. John Cutler discusses rebuilding trust in leadership, and Chris Corrigan explores organizational life cycles with the ‘two loops model.’ Lastly, we identify the signs of a Scrum Master’s journey nearing its end, reflecting on evolving organizational dynamics.
Then, Maarten Dalmijn delves into feature development, highlighting the actual value not in the features themselves but in the opportunities they create for users. Janna Bastow contrasts the complexities of overseeing multiple products in large enterprises with the more focused task of managing a single product. Additionally, Lenny Rachitsky and Dan Hockenmaier emphasize the significance of deciphering your business’s core dynamics using a fundamental equation that encapsulates inputs, desired outputs, and their interconnections.
Finally, Jason Cohen highlights the complexities of forecast evaluation using weather prediction examples, focusing on accuracy beyond just surface-level results. Benjamin Huser-Berta explains Monte Carlo Simulations’ role in forecasting and effective planning. Mads Soegaard and another article discuss the significance of user story mapping and Job Stories in product development, enhancing UX design and aligning with user perspectives. Lastly, Howard Tiersky advocates for agile adaptation in digital transformations to meet evolving technological and customer demands.
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The most popular discussion on LinkedIn last week was: The Minimum Viable Library — ScrumMaster edition, version 2.0!
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Continuous Integration
: Continuous Integration
In this epic essay, Martin Fowler advocates for Continuous Integration, a development practice where team members frequently merge their work, minimizing integration challenges and enabling rapid feature enhancement.
🍋 Lemon of the Week
(via Medium): Scrum sucks.. Breaking news: Scrum is bad.
In a somewhat comical misfire, this article on Scrum reads like a classic case of missing the mark. It turns Scrum’s nuanced approach into a clumsy shuffle, showcasing a striking blend of misunderstanding and oversimplification.
➿ Agile & Scrum
(via Medium): Stop Big Bang Agile Transformation!
Martijn Oost criticizes forced, rapid Agile transformations, advocating for a gradual, tailored approach. He emphasizes aligning people, structures, and content with business goals and advises against generic Agile models.
: Rebuilding Trust and Breaking Free From Trust Proxies and The Swirl
John Cutler addresses how trust issues in leadership impact organizations. He suggests recognizing trust proxies, fostering open dialogues, redefining trust as tension, and focusing on successes to rebuild trust within teams effectively.
: The Two Loops Model of Change, Part 1
Chris Corrigan shares insights on the ‘two loops model’ of change in living systems, a tool for leaders to navigate the complex dynamics of organizational life cycles and emerging systems.
🎓 🖥 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class w/ PSFS Certificate — February 15, 2024
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 a live-virtual immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 o’clock CET.
Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class w/ PSFS Certificate — February 15, 2024.
👉 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
: More Features, More Problems
Maarten Dalmijn discusses the misconceptions around feature development, emphasizing that the actual value lies not in the features themselves but in the possibilities they unlock for users.
(via ProdPad): Enterprise Product Management: How to Run Product in Large Organizations
Janna Bastow navigates enterprise product management, contrasting the vast responsibilities of leading multiple products with the focused role of managing one in large organizations
: How to describe your business as an equation
Lenny Rachitsky and Dan Hockenmaier explain the importance of understanding your business through a fundamental equation that outlines inputs, desired outputs, and their relationship.
📯 Sunsetting Scrum Masters
In this article, I uncover indicators that a Scrum Master’s or Agile Coach’s journey is coming to a close; they are sunsetting Scrum Masters.
These indicators include, for example, management’s deviation from first principles, reduced support for your change initiatives, an emerging preference for short-term fixes over long-term agile strategies, a shift back to top-down control, decreased communication involvement, exclusion from management discussions, neglected input, waning reliance from the team, being left out of new communication channels, and lessened requests for meeting facilitation.
Consequently, recognizing and addressing these signs is critical to maintaining integrity and effectiveness.
Finally, please do not fool yourself; sometimes, it is also time to move on.
Read the article now: Sunsetting Scrum Masters.
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
(via Jason Cohen): How to measure the accuracy of forecasts
Jason Cohen demystifies forecast evaluation, emphasizing that accuracy isn’t the sole criterion. He explores the mathematics of probabilities, using examples like weather prediction to illustrate the complexity of assessing forecast accuracy beyond surface-level outcomes.
(via Medium): An Introduction and Step-by-Step Guide to Monte Carlo Simulations
Benjamin Huser-Berta’s guide delved into Monte Carlo Simulations in forecasting. It explains using randomness for results, focusing on Throughput, and interpreting outcomes. The guide emphasizes the method’s usefulness in effective planning and decision-making processes.
(via InteractionDesignOrg): User Story Mapping in Design
Mads Soegaard illustrates user story mapping as a vital method for product teams to align their development with the user’s perspective, enhancing UX design and efficiency.
(via JTBD Toolkit): Job Stories Revisited
This article revisits the concept of Job Stories in the Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) framework, clarifying their application and differentiating them from user stories and personas.
🎶 Encore
: Creating Organizational Agility
Howard Tiersky advocates for organizational agility in digital transformation, stressing swift adaptation to technological changes and evolving customer expectations for success.
: 🎙 SPaMCAST 790 – It’s All About The People, A Conversation With Stefan Wolpers
Thomas Cagley interviewed me for his podcast.
📅 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 5,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning, for example, about Continuous Integration:
- Hands-on Agile 57: Humble Planning with Maarten Dalmijn.
- Hands-on Agile 54: Overcoming Common Product Backlog Management Traps with David Pereira.
- Hands-on Agile 53: An Agile Coaches Guide to Storytelling with Bob Galen.
- Hands-on Agile EXTRA: How Elon Musk Would Run YOUR Business with Joe Justice.
- Hands-on Agile 50: The Product Community of Practice with Petra Wille.
- 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 Continuous Integration — Join the 19,000-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 Continuous Integration by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide: